Saints first premier netball points meant little for coach Helen Mahon-Stroud who wants more from her charges which face a fight to stay in Christchurch’s top club competition.

The newly formed Saints side – an amalgamation between the former Hearts club and St Peters – beat St Margaret’s 44-37 at Pioneer Stadium on Tuesday night to bring up their first win of the Christchurch Netball Centre season.

But with both sides still holding up the bottom of the points table they are headed towards playing the promotion-relegation matches – against the top two teams from premier 2 – in two weeks.

Mahon-Stroud said the points were not as important as what they put on court and she wanted their inconsistencies addressed.

“To have showed an improvement in our performance against St Nicholas the previous week and then to put that out there…it was disappointing.   It’s just not good enough,” she said.

The two teams were locked at 10-10 at quarter time and just one goal separated them at halftime and with one quarter to play.

It was an improved performance from St Margaret’s, particularly with their accuracy in the shooting circle, and with the back three of Kiana Gallon, Lily Marshall and Lucy Thomson all picking up ball.

But a slow start in the fourth quarter effectively cost St Margaret’s any chance of overhauling Saints as they could muster just one goal to the opposition’s five early in the spell.

Saints sparked on attack with Alice Eddington brought back on court at goal shooter and the frontline took greater confidence in feeding both her and Alex Priest.

But Mahon-Stroud wants to see improved links across the board from the new club starting with next week’s match-up with Lincoln University.

“Those connections are very important and they’re just not happening at the moment so that’s something for us to work on.”

Meanwhile, a strong second quarter set Technical up for its fourth straight win of the season with a hard-fought 53-48 win over Kereru.

Technical led by just one goal at the first break but started strongly after the whistles to outscore Kereru 13-7 in the second spell.

Kereru’s defence tightened after halftime as they started to restrict the flow of ball into the shooters but with both Technical’s goal scorers, Chelsea Bremner and Jess Prosser, sharing the workload, they maintained a five-goal lead to the end.

The supply of ball also increased to Kereru’s shooter Juliana Naoupu who was faultless in her 12 attempts at goal in the final spell.

Lincoln University’s full court defence paved the way for a comfortable 51-34 win over St Nicholas in the late game.

They led by just one goal at the quarter break but tightened their defence through all thirds to force St Nicholas into errors, building a five-goal buffer by half-time and increasing that to 12 with one quarter to play.

Wing defence Pare Gilmartin-Kara was in menacing form picking up a number of clean intercepts in the mid-court and Lincoln University was quick to transition onto attack to score quickly through the middle stages of the game.

Fellow mid-courters Zoe Klaver and Charlotte Elley worked hard to hit the circle edge to get the ball passed the long reach of St Nicholas defender Olivia Coughlan.

Saints 44 (Alice Eddington GS1 19/23, Alex Priest GA 18/24, Casey Ashton GS2 7/12) beat St Margaret’s 37 (Georgia White GS 13/19, Madison Lloyd GA 24/36).  Quarter scores:  10-10, 22-21, 31-32, 44-37.

Technical 53 (Chelsea Bremner GS 29/34, Jess Prosser GA 24/27) beat Kereru 48 (Julianna Naoupu GS 36/44, Lauren Robb GA1 6/13, Erin McDuff GA2 6/10).  Quarter scores:  15-14, 28-21, 41-36, 53-48.

Lincoln University 51 (Elizabeth Hayman GS1 22/28, Kate Shearer GA 24/35, Emma Stiven GS2 5/11) beat St Nicholas 34 (Lily Nicol GS 16/19, Samaria Thompson GA 13/21, Morgan Rennie GS2 5/9).  Quarter scores:  15-14, 28-23, 41-29, 51-34.