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Justin Chadwick

Fever aim to be road warriors to defend netball crown

The West Coast Fever have kept their Super Netball title defence alive after a semi-final win. (Richard Wainwright/AAP PHOTOS)

Coach Dan Ryan says the road holds no fears for the West Coast Fever as they attempt to knock the NSW Swifts out of the Super Netball title race.

The Fever secured their spot in the preliminary final with a 64-57 win over the Melbourne Vixens in Sunday's minor semi-final in Perth.

West Coast are the defending champions, but will now need to beat the Swifts in a preliminary final in Sydney and the Adelaide Thunderbirds in the grand final on July 8 in Melbourne in order to snare a second straight title.

The Swifts finished on top of the ladder, but a shock extra-time loss to the Thunderbirds in the major semi-final means they are in danger of going out in straight sets.

That seemed unthinkable a fortnight ago when the Swifts were on a nine-match winning run.

The Fever beat the Swifts 78-67 in enemy territory in round four, and they are backing themselves to come up trumps again.

"Absolutely not," a confident Ryan replied when asked if a road trip would count against his team. 

"It's a great challenge to play one of the benchmark teams at home. Bring it on.

"They're a quality side, they've got weapons everywhere. They're well coached, well connected.

"It's going to be an absolute tussle. But we have to back in the way we play and hopefully it's good enough."

Fever captain Courtney Bruce was the star of the show against the Vixens, with the star goal keeper finishing with 15 deflections and seven gains. 

Her battle against star Swifts shooter Romelda Aiken-George on Saturday is set to play a huge role in the result.

Aiken-George scored the buzzer-beating winning goal when the Swifts downed the Fever 65-64 in Perth in round nine.

"I love going up against Romelda," Bruce said. 

"They're going to be tough. They're going to have a lot of pride, and they're gong to want to win in front of their home crowd.

"We lost that second game to them, but excited to see what we can do."

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