Pulse promise to 'spoil party' after setting up Thunder final in Manchester

London Pulse kept alive their hopes of back-to-back Netball Super League titles with victory over Loughborough Lightning in the preliminary final and then warned Manchester Thunder: "We're coming to spoil the party".

Pulse recovered from a defeat to Thunder in last week's semi-final which had rocked the camp and led to a player-led inquest, according to director of netball Sam Bird.

And Bird labelled their response against Lightning as "100 per cent" their best performance of the season as a 60-56 victory - inspired by Sophie Kelly - set up a rematch with Thunder in Manchester and denied their opponents a sixth straight appearance in the showpiece event.

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Speaking to Sky Sports afterwards, Bird said: "I enjoyed the way we played. We talked about having that tenacity and belief and trying to break up the partnerships of Loughborough, and I thought we did that from beginning all the way through.

"After the first quarter I said that is our best quarter of the season, and then they just pushed on for the whole game."

'Leaders stood up'

The joyous scenes at the end were a far cry from last week, when the manner of defeat to the Thunder left Bird - and her players - dissatisfied.

"To be honest, the players came to me," Bird said. "They knew I was upset. The leaders came and said 'we can do better than this, this is on us'.

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"It's so good that the strong players in the squad stood up."

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'I can't wait to get another gold medal'

Kelly's 22 goals and team-leading two interceptions from her favourite goal attack position earned her the player-of-the-match award.

She said afterwards: "We played [Manchester] last week and didn't put in our best performance, but we know we can be great, just like today.

"We're going to go to win, we want to go back-to-back, we know we can do it and we're super-excited. Can't wait to get another gold medal!"