A decisive second quarter was the key to the Magic Marlins' 47-29 opening victory over the Tiger Sharks in the Netball Super League.

The Sharks, last year's second runners-up, looked set to pose a serious threat to the Marlins after a tight first quarter which finished 11-8 in the Marlins' favour.

But the latter, who finished second last year, dominated the second quarter 15-5 to lead 26-13 at half-time.

"We were trying to focus more on the defence since the Marlins have strong players who are good at reading the game," said Sharks captain Low Yi Lun. "Unfortunately, we did not manage to execute this game plan well."

She believes there were some positives from the game.

"We had some good patches of play in terms of timing, passing and coming forward," she said. "I feel that we need to have more such instances in upcoming games."

Marlins captain Premila Hirubalan attributed her team's success to strong team spirit. "We tried our best to have fun and enjoy ourselves as this is the first game of the season. That helped us have the edge over the other team mentally."

Despite their commanding victory, Hirubalan believes there are still areas for the Marlins to work on.

"Right now we have a tendency to focus on passing to only one player," she said. "As a result, the opponents managed to get a lot of balls from us. So I think this is one area we can work on."

Defending champions Sneakers Stingrays were also in action yesterday, defeating newcomers Fier Orcas 60-42. Stingrays skipper Carmen Goh was pleased with the team's performance.

"We are very happy to have won. It was a tough match considering that this was the Fier Orcas' first time playing in the Super League," she said.

In the third match of the day, the Blaze Dolphins defeated the Mission Mannas 44-33 .