Lancaster rejects claims Kiwi netball players are unfit

Netball New Zealand strength and conditioning coach Steve Lancaster has rejected accusations from former Australian international Liz Ellis that Kiwi players in the trans-Tasman league aren’t fit enough.

Lancaster echoed the thoughts of Tactix head coach Sue Hawkins, and said that issues were more in the lack structure of competition in New Zealand and the opportunities available for players outside the top tier tournament.

‘‘One of the things we’ve identified is we don’t necessarily have the competitions underpinning the [trans-Tasman league] that we need to produce the athletes capable of going out and winning week in week out in the championship.’’

Lancaster said that Netball New Zealand was in the middle of a competitions review that was looking at how to improve the talent coming through from grassroots netball. He said a ‘‘plethora of issues’’ contributed to the lacklustre performances from New Zealand teams in round 8 of the competition, in which Australian franchises claimed a whitewash.

The former Crusaders lock said that in any sport fitness would always be a contributing factor to whether or not a team was successful, but attributing failure to that one aspect was rather superficial.

‘‘I look at it with a grain of salt. It’s easy to look from the outside in and draw a really simple and direct comparison. To be honest there’s a multitude of factors that go into performances, be they good performances or not so good performances.’’

With Silver Ferns players monitored closely by his team at Netball New Zealand, Lancaster said that there was always an expectation on that group of players to be at the top of their game, but they had never had any difficulty when new players joined the set up.

Although he admitted that he had seen people join the elite environment at a lower fitness level than other squad members, Lancaster attributed it to a learning curve as players moved up the ranks in New Zealand netball.

‘‘We really believe we have the base here in New Zealand to have five competitive team in the transTasman league.

‘‘Our view is that we need to work with the New Zealand structure.’’