Essex Open Netball Club suffered a heavy 53-23 defeat to Exeter in their Premiership Division Three clash, despite yet another spirited effort.

It was a similar story to last week, with Essex not able to dominate sufficiently to score the goals necessary to win at this level.

Essex started slowly and soon found themselves four goals in arrears. However, a couple of quick responses from Sophia Sefton brought Essex back into the game.

Exeter were strong in both circles and this meant Essex found scoring chances hard to come by.

Although Essex battled hard at the end of the first quarter, they were 16-5 behind and struggling to keep on terms with Exeter.

The second quarter was dominated by both teams’ defences.

At the end of the second quarter, Exeter came out on top by 10 goals to five, increasing their lead to 28-10 at the half time interval.

At half-time, Essex's Ellie Chambers came on at centre in addition to the players who had come on during the second quarter.

The pattern of play remained much the same, with Exeter having more of the ball to create scoring opportunities to take advantage of.

There was some brief resistance from Essex as they reduced the deficit slightly.

However, Exeter soon took command again and at the end of the third quarter the scores stood at 18-40 and to all intents and purposes, the game was over.

Essex continued to battle hard in the last quarter, but when the full-time whistle went they had suffered another heavy defeat.

Captain and goal attack Sophia Sefton was named player of the match.

Next week, Essex meet local rivals Leyton as they look to bounce back from back-to-back defeats at the start of the new campaign.

Essex Open Netball Team members: Stewart, L.Allen, Spencer, Shaw, Linehan, Biss, Chambers, Stevens, Sefton, Reynolds-Blanche, N Allen.