The Giants have made it back-to-back Super Netball wins after defeating Collingwood 59-55 to maintain their impressive winning run over their Victorian rivals.
Fresh off their maiden success of the new season against the Adelaide Thunderbirds, the Giants entered Saturday's contest at Ken Rosewall Arena boasting an imposing record of 13 victories from their 14 meetings with the Magpies, including wins in the 2017 and 2022 finals series.
Searching for their first win over the Giants since the 2017 season, Collingwood stumbled out of the blocks with a litany of turnovers and penalties handing the advantage to the home side as goalers Jo Harten and Sophie Dwyer powered the home side to a 36-25 lead at halftime.
The visitors played with greater composure in the second half and caused a few anxious moments with a strong fightback in the fourth quarter, but it was not enough to prevent their third loss in four games.
"Yeah, that's two wins in a row but we need to keep winning because we didn't have the best of starts," midcourter Jamie-Lee Price told Fox Sports after tallying 31 feeds, 20 goal assists, five gains and four intercepts in the Giants' win.
A series of early intercepts and a run of eight out of 10 goals saw the hosts jump out to a 17-8 start, though the Magpies closed the opening quarter with four of the last five goals to cut the margin to 20-15.
The Giants continued to punish Collingwood's turnovers in the second period while their defence restricted the Pies to 10 goals for the quarter, Harten and Dwyer combining to shoot at 94 per cent to extend their lead to 11 at the main break.
Kelsey Browne and Jodi-Ann Ward tried to spark the Magpies into action in the third quarter but the Giants' defensive unit shut down Collingwood's two-point goal opportunities to help maintain their 11-goal buffer.
After keeping pace with the Giants during the final quarter, Magpies coach Nicole Richardson benched Shimona Nelson to introduce long-range shooting threat Kelly Singleton into the contest and the former NSW Swifts goaler responded with four two-point Super shots.
Singleton's efforts provided Collingwood with a glimmer of hope but after seeing their lead shrink to 57-51, defender April Brandley produced some key turnovers in the closing minutes to secure the win for the Giants.
"I think we just didn't stick to our game plan, we obviously froze with the ball a bit and stopped letting it go like we did at the start," Price said about the Giants' fourth-quarter lapse.
"We will have to look at that and see how to fix that because we need to be strong when we finish games as well."
