Adio lights UK Netball Super League fuse - and the other seven teams must respond
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
The 2026 Netball Super League season is barely underway but London Pulse vice captain Halimat Adio has challenged the league with a statement of intent.
Image: Sky Sports livestream
Reigning champions London Pulse opened their campaign with a 56–51 win over Manchester Thunder at a packed Copper Box Arena, but the defining moment happened in Adio's post match interview in which she told Eboni Usoro-Brown that all teams should go in to games with an “annihilate mindset” against each other.
Adio earned the Player of the Match accolade with 60 minutes of dogged defensive strategies against a changing Thunder attacking line, but she delivered what may already be the most significant message of the entire season, in just eleven seconds.
Initially speaking about her own team's performance, Adio was decisive and direct: “We had a ‘no mercy’ mentality today, we want to finish off where we finished off last season, we want to win. And we have to start that from the get-go.”
But Halimat Adio sees the bigger picture:
“I think that should be for every single team, we should be going in to an 'annihilate mindset', a 'no mercy' mindset, because we want to show why this league is so good, so it needs to be competitive and we have to go hard against each other every week.”
The season is one game old, yet London Pulse has already removed any suggestion of easing into 2026. The champions are operating at full intensity from night one, and now everyone else has effectively been dared to do the same.
If Adio's challenge is met, this league could be about to get very interesting.