Inspiring leader set standard for all defenders
OPINION: April Fool’s prank was the first thought.
What do you mean, Casey Kopua is announcing her international netball retirement on March 31? She can’t call it a day, the Silver Ferns still need her.
Truth is there’s never a good time for the all-time greats to go.
Kopua is certainly that. But there’s often more to life for the female athlete. A wife and mother, the 31-year-old Kopua felt she couldn’t do justice to that and the Silver Ferns.
Better to go at a time of her choosing and with her immense reputation as a player and leader intact.
A national league champion, trans-Tasman league winner, twotime Commonwealth Games gold medalist; a World Cup title was the only honour that eluded Kopua. The next world championships, in two years, were too far off for her and her family.
You’ll have to forgive me, this next bit’s typical of the corny stuff we tend to write when people retire. It’s also accurate.
Kopua and New Zealand finished second at the 2015 World Cup in Sydney. The post-match tears stung that bit more because, led by coach Waimarama Taumaunu, some significant figures weren’t going to be around much longer.
Taumaunu, shooter Jodi Brown - and now Kopua as it’s turned out - all finished up after the subsequent Constellation Cup series. Victories in the concluding tests in Melbourne and Perth enabled the Silver Ferns to draw the series 2-2 and gain a measure of satisfaction after the disappointment of Sydney.
In quite a real way, though, the 58-55 loss to Australia in that 2015 world final had actually been a triumph for Kopua.
A year earlier she’d been in career-best form. The Silver Ferns, after the humiliation of their 18-goal defeat in the Commonwealth Games final, were something of a shambles, but not their skipper.
Then came her horrific patella tendon rupture. Many thought that would be it for Kopua. There seemed little chance of her coming back from that injury; not in time for the World Cup anyway, and definitely not at the level we’d become accustomed to.
Ten months later, on the same Sydney court where her career appeared as if it were over, Kopua put together a sublime World Cup campaign. She said she wouldn’t embarrass herself, wouldn’t insult the team and its supporters by taking a bib she wasn’t good enough to justify, and she didn’t.
Playing to the best of your ability gives you the chance to win, not the right. Kopua didn’t finish the tournament with a gold medal, but she was no loser.
One hundred and one tests for New Zealand, 77 as captain, indicate Kopua’s significance to the game in this country.
But her international career was never about individual achievements. It was never about words either. Deeds were what mattered to Kopua and that will be reflected in her legacy.
For generations to come, all New Zealand defenders will be judged against the standards Kopua set. There’s no greater example of her status than that.