The Waikato-Bay of Plenty Magic are staggering towards the trans-Tasman netball league finals rather than striding confidently.

After a month where everything was fine, injuries have struck again, with wing attack Grace Rasmussen and defender Kelly Jury both ruled out of Sunday's clash against the Adelaide Thunderbirds in Hamilton.

Sam Sinclair is likely to be fit to start Sunday's game against the Thunderbirds, after exiting early on Monday with an ankle injury. Photo: File.

It will be the sixth game Grace has missed this season. She has also been withdrawn early in two others, and the Magic have lost all seven where she hasn't played a full 60 minutes. At this stage, she is hoping to be back for the start of the finals on July 10.

There is better news with regards to her midcourt partner, Sam Sinclair, who came off with an ankle injury on Monday, when the Magic lost to the Queensland Firebirds, but is likely to start on Sunday.

Injuries have been the story of the Magic's season, one where they have only had their first-choice starting seven available for four games out of 13.

Coach Julie Fitzgerald told Stuff, it has been frustrating, especially for the injury bug to have bitten again just when they have finally got their whole squad fit.

"We really started to build momentum through those rounds where we had a full squad available, we were able to work on combinations at training, we were able to keep working on structures and things that we wanted to work on.

"You suddenly take two, or three, or four players out of that, it all becomes more difficult, and this is certainly a time of the year when you would like to be building that momentum and just putting your team out there and polishing it off, not changing combinations every week."

In the Thunderbirds, the Magic close out the regular season against a team that has won just twice and is clearly the worst of the Australian sides.

The last time the Magic had a win over an Australian team was back in the first round of last season - over the Thunderbirds.

Julie says despite being hampered by injuries and suffering a big loss to the Firebirds (71-47) on Monday, she is still seeing plenty of positives heading into tomorrow's game.

"We'll try and play a consistent 60 minutes where we maintain our intensity and cut our error rate down.

"Despite the score last week, we are kind of progressing along that way. We didn't have anywhere near as many turnovers as we have in previous games. We've just got to be able to maintain that intensity in defence and win a bit more ball back."

Looking past this game, the Magic know they will be hosting the New Zealand conference elimination final a week later.

There, they will play either the Northern Mystics or the Mainland Tactix (or, in an extremely unlikely scenario, the Central Pulse).

The Mystics and the Tactix have a de facto playoff game today in Auckland, with the winner almost certain to be the Magic's opponent next weekend.

Julie will be watching that game and the following one between the Southern Steel and the New South Wales Swifts closely, but says she is positive her side's attention hasn't shifted from tomorrow's game to the challenges that lie ahead.

"All our preparation has been for this week. We've reviewed the Thunderbirds, we've had a talk about what we need to do and all of those things, so I think our focus is very much solely on the Thunderbirds at this stage.

"We don't even know who we're playing the following Sunday - depending on who we play, we will have a totally different game plan."

First centre pass for tomorrow's game will be just after 4pm.

- Stuff