{"id":8650,"date":"2026-02-28T03:50:02","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T22:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/02\/28\/no-mercy-as-pulse-start-title-defence-with-win\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T03:50:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T22:20:02","slug":"no-mercy-as-pulse-start-title-defence-with-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/2026\/02\/28\/no-mercy-as-pulse-start-title-defence-with-win\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;No mercy&#8217; as Pulse start title defence with win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BySimon ArmstrongBBC Sport<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published21 minutes ago<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#comments\">4 Comments<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>London Pulse showed a &quot;no-mercy mindset&quot; as they got their Netball Super League title defence off to a winning start with a 56-51 victory over Manchester Thunder at the Copper Box Arena.<\/p>\n<p>Having been edged out in last week&#x27;s season-opening <a href=\"\/sport\/netball\/articles\/clyzqlvjr9go\">Netball Super Cup final by Loughborough Lightning<\/a>, a dominant third and fourth-quarter showing enabled the home side to stretch out what had been a two-point lead at the halfway point.<\/p>\n<p>Player of the match Halimat Adio hailed Pulse&#x27;s &quot;slick&quot; display.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#x27;s crazy to say it, but we had a no-mercy mentality today,&quot; she said. &quot;We want to finish off where we finished off last season.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We want to win and we have to start that from the get-go. I think everyone did that.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Obviously last week was really disappointing for us, but there are building blocks.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;This year the teams are really, really strong. So we need to do our homework and I think we&#x27;ll be all good.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Pulse coach Sam Bird said the game had &quot;ebbed and flowed&quot; with Thunder scores in the last two minutes narrowing the gap to grab a league table point for finishing within five points of their opponents.<\/p>\n<p>Bird&#x27;s Thunder counterpart, Karen Greig, predicted it would be &quot;a good two or three rounds&quot; before her side find their feet despite &quot;lots of positives&quot;.<\/p>\n<h2>How to follow 2026 Netball Super League on BBC Sport<\/h2>\n<p>BBC Sport will show one game per week during the regular season.<\/p>\n<p>These are the games you can watch live on the BBC Sport website and iPlayer:<\/p>\n<p>28 February: London Mavericks v Nottingham Forest (14:00 GMT)<\/p>\n<p>7 March: Manchester Thunder v London Mavericks (17:00 GMT)<\/p>\n<p>15 March: Nottingham Forest v Leeds Rhinos (16:00 GMT)<\/p>\n<p>22 March: London Pulse v Nottingham Forest (18:00 GMT)<\/p>\n<p>28 March: Loughborough Lightning v Birmingham Panthers (18:30 GMT)<\/p>\n<p>4 April: London Pulse v Birmingham Panthers (17:00 BST)<\/p>\n<p>11 April: Dragons v Birmingham Panthers (16:00 BST)<\/p>\n<p>18 April: Loughborough Lightning v London Mavericks (18:00 BST)<\/p>\n<p>Televised games in weeks 9-14 will be announced at a later date.<\/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\/c99j1zv9zmro\">\n<p>All you need to know about Netball Super League 2026<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Published12 hours ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/bitesize\/articles\/z4tcp9q\">\n<p>What is it like to be the youngest player in the Netball Super League?<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#x27;No mercy&#x27; as Pulse start title defence with winImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Funmi Fadoju\u202fand her London Pulse team-mates took control against Manchester Thunder as the game wore&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8651,"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-8650","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\/8650","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=8650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}