Australia again displayed strong early season form as it maintained its immaculate international record against South Africa with a 77-40 victory in the opening game of the three Test netball series at Challenge Stadium.

It was Australia's 26th win from as many Tests against South Africa and followed up the 40-goal shellacking of a depleted England last week.

South Africa posed many more problems for the Australian defence, almost doubling England's total and equalled Australia's 75 per cent shooting conversion rate.

However, Australia's all court pressure forced the youthful visitors into several errors and provided the home team's shooters with 49 more attempts than their counterparts.

"I can't believe we won that by much, it was so hard out there, the (South African) girls are so quick and so athletic," Australian wing defence Selina Gilsenan said.

Australian coach Norma Plummer made two changes to the lineup which started against England, replacing shooter Catherine Cox with her Sydney Swifts team-mate Megan Anderson and giving Thunderbirds centre Natalie von Bertouch just her second Test cap at centre, in place of Natasha Chokljat.

Von Bertouch produced an assured performance.

South Africa scored the first goal, but it took Australia less than three minutes to hit the front and it led 20-11 at the first break.

South Africa suffered a blow in the second quarter when its most experienced player, shooter Manzo Machoga, was forced out of the game with a knee injury after making all five of her attempts.

Both coaches made several changes at half time with Plummer modifying each line.

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