The Sunshine Girls’ brilliant run in their historic Commonwealth Games ended in the final on Sunday after the Jamaicans were beaten 55-51 by Australia at the NEC Arena in Birmingham, UK, snapping a five-match winning streak.

The game was closely contested throughout but the Australians, thanks to a big third quarter, held off the late charging Jamaicans to avenge their two-goal Pool A loss last week.

It was a well-deserved silver medal for the Sunshine Girls.

New Zealand beat outgoing champions England 55-48 in the third place play-offs for the bronze medal.

In the highly anticipated final, both teams were knotted at 29-all at half time after Jamaica rallied from a two-goal 12-14 deficit at the end of the first quarter to tie up the game.

However, Australia had a big 16-10 third quarter and, despite a strong fourth quarter, the Sunshine Girls could only close the deficit by two goals.

Jhaniele Fowler led Jamaica’s scoring with 46 goals from 47 attempts while Shanice Beckford scored all five of her tries.

Gretel Bueta scored all of her 37 attempts to lead Australia; Cara Koenen was also perfect with her 15 tries while Steph Wood who played the first two quarters as Goal Attack scored three of five attempts.