SEVERN Stars player Iona Darroch believes the team will come back stronger second time around against London Pulse on Saturday night (7pm) — the side they faced on the opening day of the season.

The mid-court player says Stars have been on a learning curve in the first half of the campaign since they lost to the Vitality Netball Superleague newcomers 51-49 at home in January.

Darroch said thanks to Stars' training regime and mixed experiences on court, both positive and negative, they had grown significantly as a team in that time.

Pulse, meanwhile, have failed to win again with eight straight defeats leaving them bottom of the table, three points behind Stars in eighth.

Darroch said: “Obviously we played Pulse in our first game of the season and I think both teams have progressed since then but we will definitely come back stronger this time as we have developed a lot since the start of the season.

“We have learnt a lot in the first half of the season and have had a great week of training so I’m looking forward to seeing what we can bring to the court today.”

At London’s Copper Box Arena, Darroch hopes her side can emulate the standard of performance they produced at leaders Wasps last weekend.

Stars, with just two league wins under their belt, pushed Wasps close before ultimately going down 54-47 at Coventry's Ricoh Arena.

The Worcester club's head coach Sam Bird praised her team's show, saying it showed they are capable of competing with anyone in the league and that they had used the ball when they won it “brilliantly”.

“We put out a good performance against Wasps last week so we need to be confident in that and turn our good performances into wins,” added Darroch.

“We have a great opportunity to do that against Pulse.

“We are expecting a good contest and a physical game but if we stick to our structures and reduce our errors then we should come out on top.

"As a team we are very good at winning ball so we know we are going to get turnovers.

"We just need to make sure we are clinical in attack and play to our strengths to take care of the ball to goal.”