And the winner is . . . Noeline Taurua
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‘‘She’s authentic in everything that she does. It just comes out in the teams that she involves herself in. She’s very pure.’’ Laura Langman on Noeline Taurua
Smart, authentic but most of all a winner, Noeline Taurua must make any shortlist of Australasia’s finest sports coaches. On Sunday, Taurua will attempt to guide her Sunshine Coast Lightning to a third straight Super Netball title in her farewell match against the New South Wales Swifts in the grand final in Brisbane.
Few would bet against it. Success follows Taurua wherever she goes and her stocks have never been higher after she masterminded New Zealand’s turnaround to topple Australia as world champions in July.
A veteran of 34 tests for the Silver Ferns, until a knee injury ended her playing days in 1999, Taurua found her calling in coaching.
In New Zealand, she won two national championships and a transtasman title with Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic – the first North Island team to win the former competition and the only Kiwi side in nine years to win the latter. She also spent one season transforming the Southern Steel in Invercargill.
She lifted them from a three-win 2015 trans-tasman season to an unbeaten 11 wins and two draws regular season in 2016, before they lost successive finals matches.
Transferring her talents across the Tasman, when the new, worldleading Super Netball competition was established, she hardly missed a beat.
Defying conventional logic she quickly established a national sporting titan with the Lightning in their Sunshine Coast outpost, taking them to the first two Super Netball titles, this year’s minor premiership and another grand final.
The Lightning’s success this year is the more remarkable as they lost
Australian Super Netball final Sunshine Coast Lightning v NSW Swifts Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Sunday 3pm (NZ time)
Lightning $1.40, Swifts $2.75 Diamonds stars Caitlin Bassett and Kelsey Browne in the off-season and rebuilt their squad.
‘‘The work that she’s done over three years is nothing short of remarkable,’’ Lightning captain Laura Langman said.
Langman knows better than most what makes the 51-year-old Taurua tick, having shared in her triumphs with the Magic, Lightning and Silver Ferns.
‘I just think she’s authentic in everything that she does,’’ Langman said.
‘‘It just comes out in the teams that she involves herself in. She’s very pure.’’
Former Silver Ferns captain and defender Katrina Rore, another member of New Zealand’s World Cup-winning team, praised Taurua for her team-building qualities
‘‘I think Noels just knows how to bring a team together, she knows how to keep them calm under pressure,’’ said Rore, who will play for the Swifts on Sunday.
‘‘She knows how to let them be them and be free under pressure so they can execute a game plan quite well. I feel like she knows how to let a team believe in in itself.’’
Leading Australian players and coaches also admire Taurua, who will will finish up at the Lightning after Sunday’s game, but will continue at the helm of the Silver Ferns for October’s four-match Constellation Cup series against Australia.
‘‘Noeline is so smart, we see it across Sunshine, I’ve seen it at Silver Ferns level as well,’’ Diamonds vicecaptain Liz Watson said.
Swifts coach Briony Akle doesn’t think Sunday’s grand final comes down to a battle of wits with Taurua but described her Lightning counterpart as amazing.
‘‘It’s not necessarily a battle of the coaches, obviously I love watching her coach as well,’’ Akle said.