Commonwealth Games semi-final spot could go to the final game for Eleanor Cardwell and her England team-mates

Eleanor Cardwell’s hopes of a Commonwealth Games medal look like hinging on the final group game after England’s netballers began their campaign with two wins and a defeat in Glasgow.

They opened their Group A fixtures by defeating Northern Ireland 83-34 at the OVO Hydro on Saturday.

Having led 24-7 and then 41-18 at half-time, England introduced Cardwell for the second half with the Blackpool star scoring from 35 of her 37 attempts.

However, Sunday’s second group game saw England beaten 66-47 by Australia.

The defending champions built an early 18-11 lead before extending that to 56-35 going into the final period.

That saw Cardwell introduced as she was successful with 10 of her 13 efforts at goal.

Monday then saw Cardwell come on in the third quarter as England defeated Malawi 73-38, scoring with all 21 of her shots.

The win left them level on points with Australia and South Africa, who play their games in hand against Malawi and Northern Ireland respectively on Tuesday.

Only the top two in each group qualify for the semi-finals, with England meeting Tonga on Wednesday (4pm) and South Africa in their final match on Thursday (9pm).

Speaking before the Malawi game, Cardwell had said the Australia defeat highlighted the areas England needed to address.

She told England Netball: “We’ve got to get straight back to focusing on ourselves..

“We don’t want to catastrophise everything. We’re going to pick out one or two things to really concentrate on and try to be more connected.

“We’ve got so much depth in this squad. We’ve got lots of players that can step up and help. I think it’s about us trying to perform and us trying to get out there.

“There were a lot of moments that were good. Now we know where we stand. We know the things that we need to work on.

“Now it’s about getting back to the hotel, looking at some more analysis, trying to keep the vibes going and taking confidence from how far we’ve come. We’ll be ready.

“We had an incredible training camp and preparation, so now we need to have a really good look at ourselves and see what we need to do.

“I think this team has a really good mix. It’s really weird that I’m probably one of the most experienced players in this team.

“The girls bring freedom, they bring their own aspects of the game and their own talents. They play in different ways.

“We all help each other. Liv (Tchine) plays one way, I play another, but we take little things from each other’s games to try and learn and adapt our style as well.

“We’re constantly learning, adapting, communicating and trying to get behind each other.”