‘Bench me then,’ I said, pulling off my bib and handing it to Justine. ‘I’m not playing like that.’

‘Fine,’ said Justine, yanking the bib out of my hand and passing it to Poppy. Even though only seven players were needed on court, each state netball team had several extra players. That way, if someone was injured, another player could step in.

I watched Justine talk to Poppy, wondering if she’d ask her to target the GD too, or if she’d realised it wasn’t okay.

‘Edie? Are you sick?’ asked Tess, looking concerned.

But before I could answer her, Justine yelled for the team to get back on the court. The siren had gone and the game was starting.

Tess kept looking over at me, but there was no way I could explain what had happened while she was on the court. Besides, I didn’t want to wreck the game for her – although that was fast happening anyway. The Warriors had stormed ahead, and their GD was shutting down any attempt our attackers made to get the ball. I knew Tess was frustrated, and I hoped she’d understand why I’d refused to target their player. I didn’t want her to blame me if we lost, which was looking pretty likely at this stage. For a second I wondered if I’d done the right thing. Without their GD we might have stood a chance. I shook the thought off. I didn’t want to be responsible for injuring someone.

By the time the siren went at half-time, we were three goals down. I felt weird sitting on the bench as the rest of the team came into the huddle. Tess called me over to join in, but I shook my head. I didn’t want to have to explain myself to the rest of the team.

As the game started again, I tried to work out what the Warriors’ plays were. They positioned themselves differently to us, and moved the ball down the court in a slightly unusual way. I figured the reason they kept winning was because nobody had quite worked out how to shut them down. I noticed that their Wing Attack always seemed to run to the same spot. If we could just beat her there, they’d be down a player. I really wished that I was still on the court. I hated sitting here, watching my team get beaten.

The netball fairy must have heard me. Meg, our Wing Defence, leapt up to intercept a pass and she crashed down heavily. Her knee bent backwards. Even from the bench I could tell it was bad. She screamed as she hit the ground, and the umpire blew the whistle to stop the game as everyone surrounded her to see if she was okay. I wanted to run on too, but I couldn’t. Not from the bench.

I watched Justine and Tess lift her up and support her as she hopped from the court, crying. She couldn’t put any weight on her right leg. I really hoped she hadn’t torn a ligament or something.

‘Edie, you’re on,’ yelled Justine, tossing me the WD bib as she helped Meg to the bench.

I pulled a face. ‘I can’t play Wing Defence.’

‘Well, you’re not playing Goal Attack, and we need you,’ said Justine harshly.

I pulled on the bib. As I ran out onto the court, Tess grabbed my arm. ‘What is going on?’

‘I’ll tell you later.’

She nodded. ‘Hope you’ve got a plan. We’re getting thrashed!’

A plan? Hardly. I hadn’t played this position since I was ten. I might have been a natural attacker, but I certainly wasn’t a natural defender.

The whistle went and the game was back on. My WA was fast and pushy. Having seen the way she always ran to the same side of the goal circle, my only thought was to get there first and intercept. The first time I tried it, she had the ball away before I had any chance of grabbing it, and they scored a goal. They were now four goals up. We were in real trouble.

On their centre pass, I ran out fast. I knew exactly where she was going – I guess that was the advantage of watching from the bench. I’d started to read the play differently. I knocked the pass away and Maggie snatched it up. A quick pass back to me and I lobbed it long to Tess in the circle. It was a crazy pass, but I knew Tess could catch it. She did, and she scored. Now we were three down.

I realised I was trying to play attack from a defensive position, which was risky. I had to try and defend as well. Besides, I had a lot to prove to Justine. I needed to show her we could win without targeting injured players.

As I chased the WA down the court, I waited a split second for their Centre to pass the ball off and then I leapt in front, snatching it away. I threw the ball to Maggie, and she passed it to Becky, our Centre. Becky passed to Tess, who promptly shot another goal. Two down.

As I jogged back for the centre pass, I saw Justine watching me. She nodded and shrugged, which I gathered was some sort of weird apology. I knew we’d have to talk about what happened later, but right now, I was going to smash this game as hard as I could.

On our next centre pass, I came right out, freeing Poppy up to run into the goal third. It was a messy play, but it was effective, and Tess scored another goal. I could feel the charge of our team as we began to realise we could actually win. Suddenly everyone lifted. Maggie threw a beautiful lob to Tess, which she caught just inside the circle. And from there she shot a perfect goal. The scores were level. This game was ours.

With only a minute to go, Justine started yelling from the sidelines. Even she could feel it. I knew we had to convert their next centre pass. As the whistle went, I sprung out like I was being chased. Our defence was so good, the Warriors had no one to pass to, and the umpire blew her whistle. They’d held the ball for more than three seconds, so it was ours. I took the pass and threw it fast to Maggie, who then bounce-passed to Tess. I expected Tess to take a shot, but instead she threw a sneaky short pass to Poppy, who’d replaced me in Goal Attack. Poppy shot a beautiful goal, putting us in front by one.

We’d just jogged back to the line when the siren sounded. We’d won the game.

I heard the cheers from the crowd as our team huddled close, and sang our team song. We were all beaming. Even Justine broke into the huddle and joined in. She caught my eye, smiled, and mouthed,‘I’m sorry.’ I just nodded. I knew there would be a proper chat, but now wasn’t the time. We’d just beaten the top team – and we’d done it without targeting anyone.

Tess handed out the jelly snakes. I grabbed an extra one and walked over to the bench, where Meg was having her knee strapped – by my mum. She must have seen what had happened and run down to help out.

‘Nice game, honey,’ said Mum, looking up from where she was tying off the bandage.

‘Thanks,’ I said, handing Meg a jelly snake. ‘You okay?’ She nodded. ‘Your Mum says it’s not too bad. A couple of weeks maybe, and I’ll be back.’

‘Good, because Wing Defence is one hard position. We need you!’ I said, not wanting her to think that just because we’d won, she wasn’t needed. She smiled at me. ‘You did okay in it. Amazing game, Edie.’

‘Yeah, I had a point to make.’

Tess had joined us while we were talking, and I could feel her looking at me strangely. But before I could explain anything to her, I heard someone calling my name. I looked around and saw a cute, grinning face beaming down at me from the stand. It was Finn. I looked at Tess, who gave me a huge smile. ‘Go. Your fan awaits!’ I certainly didn’t need to be told twice. After all the craziness of the game, talking to Finn seemed like the best way I could possibly celebrate.

Besides, he really was cute. And I was pretty sure he didn’t train on Thursdays, and neither did I, so maybe … just maybe … we could finally find an hour or two to hang out.