Sunshine Coast Lightning haven't ruled out launching an official protest against their controversial 86-80 overtime Super Netball loss to the Giants, which came after their own apparent win in regulation was annulled due to a scorebench bungle.
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The Lightning walked off Ken Rosewall Arena in Sydney on Saturday night having thought they'd won in regulation, with the venue scoreboard showing they were in front 71-70 when the fulltime siren sounded.
Players and coaches from both sides shook hands and disappointed fans began filing out the exit doors.
The Giants protested the result, with Champion Data showing the scores as 71-all.
That was determined to be the correct score after a lengthy review of the fourth-quarter footage revealed two errors made by bench officials in their recording of goals.
The match descended into a farce for 50 minutes - during which the Giants players stayed on the court.
The umpires were at one stage thought to have left the building and the Sunshine Coast team were sitting in their changeroom before overtime finally got underway, which was dominated by the hosts.
"It's something we will review in-depth, then go back and challenge the scenario," Lightning coach Belinda Reynolds said when asked if she would protest the controversial result or seek a replay.
"We went back to the changeroom and thought we had won the game, then we had to quickly regroup.
"I think it was a hard scenario for the girls.
"We have some injuries, some people returning from ACLs, so they were really concerned about the warm-up time.
"Clearly we didn't get our heads back into the game quick enough."
Reynolds' main beef was the fact her team would have played out the last half-minute of regulation differently had the scoreboard been correct.
Believing they were protecting a one-goal lead, Sunshine Coast, after securing a turnover with 34 seconds remaining, played keepings-off as the clock ticked down.
Had the scoreboard correctly shown the scores were level, they obviously would have instead made an attempt to get off a shot.
"Really disappointed with the way it played out," Reynolds said.
"We have scenarios for end-of-games and we played it to what we thought would win when the scoreboard showed a one-goal lead."
Captain Steph Fretwell agreed.
"It's a very weird emotion to think you've won a game, go to your changeroom and then get told you have 10 minutes to warm back up and play extra time," she said.
"Then to lose the game sucks.
"We would have played the 30 seconds very differently at the end.
"I know we would have played to (take) a shot, and not just play the ball around."
Australian Associated Press
