Northern Ireland's hopes of progression at the Netball World Cup were dealt a major blow with a 47-43 defeat by Malawi yesterday.
Dan Ryan's side were looking to bounce back from their loss against Zimbabwe but Joyce Mvula's superb shooting accuracy helped Malawi to a third successive win.
Mvula hit 30 goals from 31 shots but despite her heroics, Takondwa Lwazi was named player of the match
Malawi are ranked just one place beneath Northern Ireland on current world rankings, but were riding high in sixth place earlier in the year.
Northern Ireland coach Ryan praised the character of his side despite the defeat.
"I'm really proud of the way we played. We showed a sense of character," said the Australian.
"After yesterday, it was about how you show up and stand up. We rode a contest against a great side. We needed to tweak a few things but it was about a response and responded beautifully.
"As much as we are disappointed we need to keep it in perspective."
Northern Ireland's Michelle Drayne admitted the nature of another close loss was tough to take.
Drayne said: "We're just gutted - we got it back to two in that third quarter and we thought we had it, but we made too many sloppy errors.
"There's still a lot of confidence in the group. We've only lost by two and four - we haven't been hammered.
"Against New Zealand we'll probably just try a few combinations and run the bench a lot more. Realistically we know it's a game we're not going to win, but we really want to put up a good contest."
The competition doesn’t get any easier for the Northern Irish ladies, with the team taking on New Zealand in today’s match-up.
New Zealand are ranked fourth in the world but are the only team who have been able to break the Australian monopoly on the competition.
New Zealand have been runners up for the last three world cups in succession, and last tasted gold at the 2003 Netball World Cup.
In an incredibly tough opener to the first preliminary group stage, Northern Ireland lost to 11-time world champions Australia by a scoreline of 88-24 on last Friday's opening day of the competition.
Bur in the next group stage game, Northern Ireland got back on track with a victory over Sri Lanka before being left shocked by defeat to Zimbabwe on Sunday.
The victory against Sri Lanka was enough to secure Northern Ireland a spot in one of the top two groups of the next preliminary stages, which consist of teams vying for the top 12 positions.
Speaking after the Zimbabwe defeat, Northern Ireland captain and GAA star Caroline O'Hanlon said: "We're pretty gutted. We gave it everything but we made too many errors. The game was there for the taking and we should have closed it out."
But despite disappointing defeats to Zimbabwe and Malawi, and a fierce encounter with New Zealand to come, Northern Ireland coach Dan Ryan is upbeat about the team’s chances.
"As much as we are disappointed we need to keep it in perspective,” opined the Australian.
"I'm really proud of the way we played. We showed a sense of character.”
Northern Ireland had rebounded from a bruising opening defeat to Australia by claiming their opening victory in the Netball World Cup against Sri Lanka on Saturday.
Showing few ill effects from their 88-24 loss to the defending champions, the Northern Ireland team edged away from their persistent opponents to wrap up a 67-50 success.
Goalkeeper Gemma Lawlor said: "We knew what to expect against Australia and we had a real opportunity today to take the win. Ideally we would have pushed on and won by more,''
Lawlor made her World Cup debut four years ago when her team confounded expectations to finish eighth, and a similar finish in Liverpool is the minimum of their expectations.
Against the Sri Lankans, who restricted them to just a five-point advantage at the end of the first quarter, Northern Ireland consistently increased their advantage with Emma Magee scoring with 29 of her 32 goal attempts and goal shooter Noleen Armstrong and Shaunagh Craig weighing in with 22 and 16 respectively.
