{"id":8454,"date":"2026-02-22T02:40:04","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T21:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/02\/22\/lightning-strike-to-deny-pulse-another-super-cup\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T02:40:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T21:10:04","slug":"lightning-strike-to-deny-pulse-another-super-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/02\/22\/lightning-strike-to-deny-pulse-another-super-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Lightning strike to deny Pulse another Super Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ByJohn SkilbeckBBC Sport senior journalist at Utilita Arena, Sheffield<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published20 minutes ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Loughborough Lightning toppled last season&#x27;s dominant force London Pulse 18-17 in the Netball Super Cup final as the new campaign got off to a thrilling start.<\/p>\n<p>Deposed by Pulse as Netball Super League (NSL) champions <a href=\"\/sport\/netball\/articles\/c5y9de9l65lo\">in the Grand Final last July<\/a>, Lightning flipped the tables on their rivals who began a dominant 2025 by winning this event 12 months ago.<\/p>\n<p>These two will be the teams to beat when the new league campaign begins on 27 February, with Lightning the team starting on a huge high.<\/p>\n<p>Head coach Vic Burgess said: &quot;It&#x27;s been a really good day from us. We came into this knowing it&#x27;s a little bit different. It can be tough and it can be quick, and Pulse nearly caught us.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#x27;m really proud of the girls. They were up for it. They were chilled but with a focus on doing well for each other. The girls love winning and I love winning.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>The one-day Super Cup features all eight NSL teams, split into two groups for round-robin matches before the semi-finals and final stage.<\/p>\n<p>The 14-minute matches are far removed from the usual 60-minute games but it was a strong form guide last year when Pulse took the spoils and went on to triumph in the NSL for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>Lightning co-captain Nat Panagarry said there had been a sense of &quot;feeling sorry for yourself&quot; after last year&#x27;s Grand Final defeat, fuelling Saturday&#x27;s win.<\/p>\n<p>Leeds Rhinos and Cardiff-based Dragons occupied the bottom two spots in the NSL last season but both reached the semi-finals here and looked revitalised.<\/p>\n<p>However, Nottingham Forest, preparing for a second season as a Netball Super League club, fell in the group stage after defeats by Loughborough and Dragons.<\/p>\n<h2>Netball Super Cup 2026 results<\/h2>\n<p>Group 1: Loughborough Lightning 23-21 Nottingham Forest, Dragons 18-6 Birmingham Panthers, Forest 14-12 Panthers, Lightning 18-15 Dragons, Dragons 15-9 Forest, Lightning 19-18 Panthers<\/p>\n<p>Group 2: Leeds Rhinos 16-9 Manchester Thunder, London Pulse 15-8 London Mavericks, London Pulse 21-13 Manchester Thunder, Mavericks 13-13 Rhinos, Mavericks 19-8 Thunder, Pulse 13-12 Rhinos<\/p>\n<p>Semi-finals: Lightning 13-9 Rhinos, Pulse 18-16 Dragons<\/p>\n<p>Final: Lightning 18-17 Pulse<\/p>\n<h2>What else did we learn from the Super Cup?<\/h2>\n<p>International commitments over the winter months have interrupted pre-season preparations and that was a common message from coaches as some teams coped better than others on the big stage.<\/p>\n<p>In front of packed stands at one of the UK&#x27;s largest indoor arenas, Birmingham Panthers and Manchester Thunder both lost three from three.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#x27;s been a tough day,&quot; said Thunder coach Karen Greig, whose side lost their three games heavily to make an early exit.<\/p>\n<p>Thunder will face NSL champions Pulse in the league&#x27;s opening match, with more than 5,000 tickets sold for that Copper Box encounter.<\/p>\n<p>Greig has brought England goal shooter El Cardwell back to England after a successful stint in Australia while Thunder also have fellow Roses star Nat Metcalf back after she missed last season when pregnant and looking after baby son Miller.<\/p>\n<p>But it was to no avail at the Super Cup.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Today was about us understanding where we were actually at,&quot; Greig said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;The performances and the connections on the court definitely highlighted that.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;The quality that we&#x27;ve got in our group is undeniable and it&#x27;s about us now making sure we get everyone on the same page and connected.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>There was no such problem for Lightning while Pulse took consolation from being a whisker away from another major title.<\/p>\n<p>As Pulse coach Sam Bird said: &quot;I&#x27;m not too worried. I&#x27;m disappointed because I like winning everything available but I think we take a lot of positives from the day. It&#x27;s a nice rivalry to continue with.&quot;<\/p>\n<h2>Related topics<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/netball\">Netball<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>More on this story<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/netball\/articles\/cn48wp2g972o\">\n<p>How Pulse won the 2025 Netball Super Cup<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published8 March 2025<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/sport\/football\/articles\/cn7j0j1ex43o\">\n<p>Ex-England netball boss Neville takes football job<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published5 February<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lightning strike to deny Pulse another Super CupImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Loughborough triumphed in a dramatic finale to the second edition of the Super CupByJohn SkilbeckBBC Sport seni&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}