Wendy Frew Pillar of Steel
Not even 70 stitches and a gruesome van crash could shatter Wendy Frew’s determination. Frew’s tenacious defensive attitude, competitiveness, and work ethic, are the pillars her 16-year netball career have been built around.
The Southern Steel captain will run out in front of an adoring crowd at Invercargill’s Stadium Southland for the final time in Wednesday’s national premiership elimination final. It will be renamed ‘‘Wendy Frew Stadium’’ for the occasion.
Most thought she’d played her final game last year after a van, carrying Frew and five of her Steel team-mates, was struck by a car in Christchurch in June. The van slid for 30 metres and flipped on its side. Frew still can’t believe everyone survived. She needed 70 stitches and had surgery to deal with two large gashes on her arm and leg.
Somehow, she defied the medical experts to recover within 16 days and take the court in the grand final, in which the Steel beat Wellington’s Central Pulse. It meant the team had a perfect premiership season (16 wins from 16 matches) – an achievement Frew labels the most significant of her career, along with her lone test for the Silver Ferns in 2008.
‘‘Every time I think about last year it gives me goosebumps – what we achieved with the situations we were put in.
‘‘It just showed you the true character of the girls we’d created down here and the environment – to come back and win the whole thing and go unbeaten.’’
Little did she realise, another setback was around the corner. Nine days later, a distraught Frew was helped off the court in the final of the Super Club tournament in Nelson with a ruptured Achilles tendon.
It was a hammer blow for a woman who had just been named in a 25-strong Silver Ferns trial list and looked poised for a test recall, nine years on from her debut.
Months of rehabilitation followed, with Frew determined not to let an injury bring the curtain down on her career. The 33-year-old made it back for her swansong season and has one guaranteed match left in the Steel dress (two if they win on Wednesday and make the final on August 12).
Netball was fortunate to win the race for her talents. Born into the sports-mad Telfer family, there was always a ball being chucked about in the backyard of their home in Invercargill. Finding numbers for games was never a problem, with parents Colin and Karen having eight children, including Wendy’s twin sister, Debbie.
Saturdays in summer were spent at the softball diamond at Surrey Park, where the Telfer kids ran around with their mitts, playing and watching games.
Rugby was her first love, playing first-five for the Marist club until she stumbled across netball aged 12, when her St Theresa’s school side was short a player.
She was an outstanding touch player, making the New Zealand under-19 mixed side for the world juniors in Auckland in 2001. She could have gone down the softball path, representing the Junior White Sox and White Sox senior team.
But by then she was showing promise as a midcourter in netball, and was called into the Southern Sting national league side in 2002 while still in year 13 at Verdon College.
Juggling netball and softball was becoming an issue. She was given leave from the Sting to play for the White Sox in a 2003 Olympic qualifying tournament in Sydney.
But choosing netball proved a smart move, with Frew becoming a member of the allconquering Sting side, coached by Robyn Broughton, who was her senior A coach at Verdon, and a key influence over her career. The Sting, who won seven of the 10 national league finals contested between 1998 and 2007, were the hottest ticket in town in Invercargill, playing in front of rabid fans, who donned tealcoloured garb and wigs.
Frew won four of those titles, including three in a row between 2002 and 2004, and the final one in 2007 before the Sting morphed into the Steel with the creation of the trans-tasman league.
‘‘It did get Southland on the map,’’ she says. ‘‘It was a great thing for the Southland community and the supporters just got behind us. There was nothing else in the world that mattered.’’
The Sting were front and back-page news in Southland. Their street parades through Invercargill after final wins were something the whole region embraced.
‘‘The first year we had the parade with the ticker-tape stuff, they hadn’t learned to throw them properly,’’ Frew says. ‘‘The first couple of years people were getting black eyes from people knocking them in the head.
‘‘By the end, people certainly got used to it. It was the most unreal feeling driving around with the trophy in the truck and all the girls happy as.’’
The arrival of Australian opposition tempered expectations for the Kiwi sides in the trans-tasman league. Frew’s Steel were regular pacesetters among the New Zealand teams, but never qualified for a final.
Frew received offers from rival franchises several times, but couldn’t picture herself wearing any dress other than the Steel’s.
Broughton says that commitment sums up Frew: ‘‘She’s just good solid Wendy. She’s just there for you all the time. You couldn’t want a more loyal player or team member. Wendy was the stay-at-home Southland girl.’’
Frew enjoys royal-like status in Invercargill. ‘‘Everyone loves her down here. She’s the heart of our team,’’ longtime Steel team-mate Te Huinga Reo Selby-rickit says.
Don’t bother going supermarket shopping with her, though. ‘‘Every aisle, two or three people are stopping her. It’s a whole other level if you’re with Wendy. Everyone has a long conversation with her. She pays attention to everyone and everyone feels special she’s spoken to them.’’
Frew played just one test for the Silver Ferns, on November 2, 2008, against Australia in Brisbane, a game the Ferns lost 43-41. Many felt she should have been given greater opportunities in the black dress. With midcourt star Laura Langman and Joline Henry in front of her at wing defence for most of her career, it was tough to break in.
‘‘It’s probably one thing I do regret, not getting more time in the Ferns, but that’s how it went,’’ she says. ‘‘I don’t have regrets with the effort I put in to try and achieve that.’’
Frew is among a group of New Zealand netballers to balance motherhood with the demands of professional sport. She and firefighter husband Trent are parents to son Archie, 5, and daughter Indie, 2. The children rarely miss a Steel home game. Frew says they have provided a fresh perspective on life and improved her time management with netball.
‘‘I think it gives you a real purpose when you’re at training or you’re on tours and you’re away from the kids.
‘‘You really want to put the most into it so you’re actually benefiting being away from them and making sure you’re achieving something pretty special.’’
As for life after netball, Frew, who’s always been a sharp analyst of the game, says coaching appeals. She wants to concentrate on family time once the season is over, but is keen to eventually step into coaching via the club ranks.
It would be little surprise to see her pop up as an assistant or specialist coach with the Steel before long. ‘‘Certainly I would like to, down the track, get into some form of coaching. Netball is a great game and I’d love to see how I can go at the coaching level.’’
Before any of that, Frew has the small matter of trying to add an exclamation point to her 174-game career with another title.
Not seeing her hustling around on defence, picking up turnovers, in her familiar WD bib is going to take some getting used to. For 16 years, she’s embodied all that’s good about Sting and Steel netball.
‘‘It’s probably one thing I do regret, not getting more time in the Ferns, but that’s how it went.’’