The world no.8 and no.11 sides were in Tasmania finalising their preparations for the Netball World Cup, which starts on Friday in Sydney, with the Spirit providing the visitors with some strong competition.

The Australian Centre of Excellence, who played Wales in Launceston, were also part of the series.

The Spirit defeated Scotland on Thursday night 39-33, but went down to the COE 64-35 and the Welsh 62-39.

The co-coach of the Cavaliers was the player of the match in the win over Scotland after a strong game in defence in a win Carstens described as ‘‘fantastic’’.

‘‘For someone my age, who is starting to finish up, it presented an individual challenge of playing against international players and was an experience in itself,’’ Carstens said.

‘‘From the team’s perspective, just being able to put yourself up against these players, and in the case of beating Scotland, there was that relief side of things to have the self-belief to come away with a win.

‘‘Coming into the game, our prematch talk was all about our game and adapting to whatever style they brought.

‘‘We knew the Centre of Excellence would bring that quick, Aussie-style game , but the Scottish girls were very physical, adaptive and were calling numbers consistently.

‘‘Wales were very physical again and quick through the midcourt and were a little bit structured as well.’’

Carstens said the likes of Shelby Miller and Dana Lester were players who would benefit the most from their taste of international netball.

She also believed that the successful hosting of the two nations would help put Tasmanian netball ‘‘on the map’’.

‘‘Julia Phillips is really quite visionary in regards to what she wants to do with netball in Tassie to expose its players and supporters to as much quality netball as possible, and I think this was a really good platform to launch Diamonds matches or extra ANZ Championship matches in the state.’’