As the siren sounded, I felt sick. I couldn’t believe what I was about to do. It went against everything I’d ever learnt about fair play.

It was our centre pass. As the whistle went, I dropped back to let Maggie take the centre. It was a standard passage of play, and my opponent followed. Maggie was looking to pass the ball to me, but the GD was blocking and I couldn’t get around her. Tess couldn’t get out either, so Maggie had to pass it back to Becky, our Centre.

The play went back and forth like that for a while. It was so frustrating. I knew if I couldn’t make a break out, we weren’t going to get a goal. I took a deep breath, hating what I was about to do. I called for the ball and ran forward, my opponent going up against me. As we jumped for the ball, I bumped her hard, crashing into her strapped leg. I heard her gasp as we landed. Ignoring my conscience, I passed the ball off fast to Becky and took off down the court, ready for the pass back. The GD was trying to catch me, but I could see she’d slowed down. I had to make the most of it. I passed the ball to Maggie and ran for the goal circle. I caught it just inside the ring and shot a perfect goal. A few more like that, and we might be back in the game.

Instead of high-fiving me, Tess threw me a look. ‘What was that?’

She’d obviously noticed the bump. I shrugged. ‘Nothing.’

She didn’t look like she believed me. And besides, the GD was now limping her way back to the line.

It was their centre, but with my opponent unable to catch me, I could help defend their attackers. I tapped the pass off and Maggie caught it. We were off again. This time Tess shot the goal.

As we walked back for the next centre pass, I saw their coach talking to the umpire. The GD was called off the court. I felt horrible as I watched her limp to the bench and sit down, clearly in pain. They had ice on her in seconds and I knew they’d probably get a doctor up to check her out. This was my fault. I’d let Justine tell me what to do and now it was on me. She might have torn her ankle ligament – or worse. She might not be able to play for the rest of the season.

Suddenly, I didn’t want to play anymore. The thought of what I’d just done made me feel sick, and I couldn’t pretend that I was okay with it. Just as I was about to rip off my bib and storm off the court, Tess came up behind me.

‘Edie? We can win this. I don’t know what’s going on, but you need to focus.’

I wanted to tell Tess what had happened, but there wasn’t time. They were sending on a replacement GD.

‘Okay?’ she asked, catching my eye.

I nodded. ‘Okay.’

I played the rest of the game in a bit of a daze. My new opponent wasn’t as good as the other one, so I managed to beat her without much trouble. Once we’d scored a few goals, the rhythm of the game changed, and we started to play differently. More determined. More like a team.

Suddenly we were fourteen-all. It was our centre pass and I could hear Justine screaming instructions from the sidelines. I shot her a look and as I did, I noticed the injured GD crying on the bench. I felt like my feet were glued to the ground.

The whistle went and I snapped back to the game. I ran out and caught the ball, passing it off fast to Maggie. She flicked off another fast pass to Becky, and then I was down in the goal ring. The ball came flying in my direction and I snatched it clear. I could make this shot. I was quite a way out from the ring, but Tess was stuck behind two defenders, and she couldn’t get out.

‘Shoot, Edie!’ I heard Justine yell. I knew the siren was about to go. I had to make a decision. If I hadn’t injured my player and caused her to land the way she had, we would have been thrashed. The game was only close because I’d cheated. I didn’t want to wear that. Not for anyone.

I lined the shot up. I couldn’t believe what I was about to do. But then the ball left my hands and I saw it hit the ring and bounce off, dropping just short of a goal. Tess tried to grab it and take another shot, but before she could, the siren went. The game was over. We’d lost by one.

I shook hands with the other team, and waited for Tess to come and grill me. It didn’t take long.

‘No way you could have missed that. What’s going on?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, feeling like I’d let everyone down. First by cheating, and then by missing a shot I could have nailed.

‘What for? Did you deliberately miss?’ asked Tess, looking horrified.

‘Yeah.’ I couldn’t meet her gaze.

‘Why?’

I realised that everyone else had left the court, and it was just Tess and I still standing in the ring.

‘Justine told me to target my opponent because of her ankle. So I did, and now she’s over there crying. Because of me. That was the only reason we were winning,’ I admitted, relieved to be able to tell someone.

‘Why didn’t you just say no?’ said Tess, making it sound simple.

‘I tried. Justine told me if I didn’t bump her, I’d be benched. Now I wish I’d taken the bench.’

Tess looked horrified. Her mouth was open, but no words were coming out. ‘That’s … that’s …’

‘Shocking? I know. So that’s why I deliberately missed the goal. I didn’t think we deserved to win, not like that.’

I waited for Tess to get angry with me. Bumping a player was one thing, but throwing the game was even worse. Losing this game could make all the difference to where we ended up on the ladder. Tess didn’t say anything. Instead she just threw her arms around me. I couldn’t believe how good it felt, knowing she completely understood why I’d done what I’d done.

We walked off the court and I grabbed my drink bottle, trying to avoid Justine. I figured there’d be a big lecture to come. The rest of my team looked shattered. We’d come so close to beating the Warriors. They were probably all pretty mad at me at that moment, but I’d just have to deal with it. There was no way I could tell them what I’d done.

‘Thought you’d been practicing shooting from that far out,’ said Justine, looking furious.

I was about to try and defend myself when Tess whirled around and did it for me. ‘I can’t believe you’d ask Edie to deliberately target a player. That’s not okay, Justine. I bet Kathryn Fraser wouldn’t be too happy with that sort of coaching,’ she said quietly, making sure none of our teammates could hear her.

In any other situation I would have almost laughed at the look on Justine’s face. Instead, I took a deep breath and told her, ‘I don’t want to play state netball if I have to do things like that.’

‘Me either,’ said Tess, looking as fierce as ever.

Justine sort of crumbled. She went bright red, and was clearly really embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right. I just wanted to beat them. I swear it won’t happen again,’ she said.

‘Okay,’ I told her, not wanting things to be too weird at training on Monday. Hopefully we could all forget this.

As we walked off, Tess squeezed my hand. ‘It wasn’t really your fault that she landed badly. You didn’t push her and you didn’t trip her. You might have bumped her, but players do that all the time. That’s just trying to win the ball.’

I smiled at Tess’s reasoning. I knew she was trying to make me feel better, and it was definitely helping. But I still wanted to apologise to the other player.

As I looked over to see if the girl was still on the bench, my stomach dropped. She had a doctor with her. And that doctor was my mum. Great. Trust my mum to jump in and start helping out the other team!

Mum was kneeling down, strapping the girl’s leg, when Tess and I walked up.

‘Edie! I was just explaining to Emma here that you’re my daughter.’

Emma looked up at me. I tried to work out if she was angry, but I couldn’t really tell.

‘You okay?’ I asked.

There was a pause, then Mum answered for her. ‘She’ll be out for at least a month.’

Emma looked teary, and I felt even worse. ‘I’m sorry. I feel really awful that I made you land like that,’ I said, even though Tess was elbowing me, trying to make me stop talking. I think she was worried I’d get Justine in trouble, but I wasn’t that stupid.

‘It’s not your fault. Not really. I probably shouldn’t have been playing on it anyway,’ said Emma.

‘Still, I’m sorry.’

I realised Mum was watching me strangely. It was like she knew something had happened on the court, even if she wasn’t sure exactly what. ‘I keep telling you girls that netball is bad for your joints,’ she said, making Tess and I groan. ‘Not now, Mum!’

She laughed. ‘Okay, fair enough.’

Then Emma straightened up. ‘Thanks for missing that last goal. I’d heard you were a gun of a shooter. You must have been having an off day,’ she said, staring at me with a smile. I smiled back.

‘I’ll make sure I’m better for the finals,’ she continued. ‘We can do it all again.’ She held her hand out for me to shake.

I shook her hand. ‘I look forward to it.’

‘I’ll see you at home, honey,’ said Mum, as Tess and I headed off to join the others.

‘You know what, I reckon after today Justine will never hassle us about anything again!’ laughed Tess.

‘She’s probably terrified of you!’ I said.

‘She should be!’ She grinned, linking her arm through mine. ‘Chocolate cake?’

‘I thought you’d never ask!’