Jess Thirlby: England head coach tells Off The Court podcast victories vs Australia, New Zealand cannot be underestimated

Vitality Roses head coach Jess Thirlby has hailed England's "massive" success in their recent Test series against Australia and New Zealand with the future looking bright.

England claimed their first win against the world No 1 in Australia since the Commonwealth Games gold medal match in 2018 before losing the series 2-1.

Thirlby's side then earned an impressive 2-1 victory over the world No 2 New Zealand lifting the Taini Jamison Trophy after taking an unassailable 2-0 lead.

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The success follows England's win by the same margin against New Zealand in the Vitality Netball Nations Cup earlier this year and a hard-fought series between the two nations in 2023 which has the Vitality Roses heading in the right direction.

Speaking on the latest episode of Sky Sports' Off The Court podcast, Thirlby said: "If somebody had said to us before we left London that we'd be coming home with a win against Australia in front of 13,000 people in the very stadium that we'll have to go back out to for a World Cup, I think we would have taken that.

"To then be able to really chase that series win when we came off the back of that into New Zealand, it really meant a lot to us to kind of try and get that series win.

"To take the scalp of both nations away from home is massive, the world number one and two. But also to have got so much into this group in terms of experience and for players to seamlessly step in and those that have been in the group step up.

"There's so much that we can be super proud of. It is a massive success and should not be underestimated as to how this team has gone about getting those wins is pretty special."

On England's stunning victory over Australia, international Imogen Allison added: "It was huge. Going into that arena, it's relatively daunting, especially when it's filled with a bunch of Aussie fans and we'd played there before and lost. I think we really wanted to go out and we knew it was kind of a now-or-never situation in terms of levelling the series.

"It was pretty huge for confidence going forward and a great place to do it at."

The successful Test series has England building nicely ahead of the next World Cup in 2027.

"We've had excellent England teams, not least 2018 being a real breakthrough moment, but since then it's been around trying to uncover the next team that are going to be capable of doing that again," said Thirlby.

"It was always going to take some time because I'm not sure the depth and breadth was there when I came into the post. And I've just helped uncover a group of players who are really up for it.

"And you've now got players in this group who like Liv Tchien's first two matches against New Zealand, it was two from two. These youngsters don't even know what it is to lose against numbers one and two. And it was a real kind of sobering thought to just think actually this is massive.

"To have a different generation coming through already with a relatively robust belief in themselves, don't get me wrong we haven't yet made habits of what we've done here, but we're putting in a pretty big shift now for two or three years where we've taken the scalps of Australia, New Zealand, and Jamaica and consistently against South Africa.

"And I think at some point, it's really important that that's acknowledged and that these girls get the credit they deserve for starting to change that narrative of global netball. And ultimately, netball needs it."

Listen to the latest episode of the Sky Sports' Off The Court podcast with England head coach Jess Thirlby and international Imogen Allison.