Playing against childhood hero
THERE was great excitement in the team this week when five Firebirds were named in the Australian Diamonds 18player squad ahead of the Netball World Cup in Sydney this year.
We were all very happy for our captain Laura Geitz, Clare McMeniman, Rebecca Bulley, Kim Ravaillion and Gabi Simpson and weren’t too surprised to see so many in the squad after our strong start to the season.
They all work really hard and every training session I have with the team I know that I can learn something from them to help improve my own game.
All of the girls are really helpful and we are all pro athletes so that’s exactly how we approach training and games.
I’ve grown up watching the Australian team play and pulling on the gold dress is definitely something that I want to do when I’m a little further on in my career.
There are a number of great shooters both in the Australian team and around the world and a player I have always looked up to is Maria Tutaia.
Maria plays for the Northern Mystics in the ANZ Championship as well as the New Zealand national team and I have been watching her play for as long as I can remember.
She is a player who always backs herself, she believes in herself when she goes for the long shot and they always seem to go in.
We are playing the Mystics in Auckland this Sunday night and to know I’ll be playing against someone I have always looked up to is just an awesome feeling.
I think in our win against the Magic last week we saw glimpses of how good we can play as a team and hopefully we can keep our winning run alive when we travel to New Zealand this weekend. month. Sugars and division two coach Judy Bulley were in Brisbane at the weekend learning from Australian Diamonds coach Lisa Alexander.
“She’s very passionate about regional sport as well as the metropolitan areas and making sure we’re all on the same page,” Sugars said.
“The biggest thing we both got from it was structuring the game around the Firebirds and had a look statistically at what we could do against tough opponents.”