AUSSIES SAVOUR GOLDEN GLOW
SO the Diamonds got their groove back.
Phew. Gold medal stocks were replenished and bare trophy cabinets restocked as Stacey Marinkovich’s team dominated the international honour roll in 2022.
Off the court, Netball Australia bolstered its still-shaky bottom line in the wake of the Hancock Prospecting debacle, having been in the right place at the time Dan Andrews had an election to win and Visit Victoria as the vehicle to roll out a $15 million replacement sponsorship. Phew (2).
Domestically, West Coast Fever claimed their first ever national title, after 25 barren years, with Dan Ryan becoming the league’s first male premiership coach in the only grand final to be sold – and at the 11th hour – instead of hosting rights being awarded to the winner of the major semifinal.
Only for it then be staged where it would rightfully have been played, anyway. It was an amateurish and unedifying process, poorly timed and completely lacking in consultation, in which the end did not justify the means.
Netball Australia was also fortunate that a government white knight rose from the ashes of the Hancock deal, amid an unprecedented avalanche of publicity for a sport forever trying to raise its profile. Just not, ideally, like this.
Onwards, then, to some of the big questions of 2023, given that answers we already know include the next Super Netball grand final venue (Melbourne), the Diamonds’ status as they attempt to regain the World Cup trophy (warm favourites), and the identity of the best-known player you may not have heard of before 2022 (Donnell Wallam).
WHAT NEXT FOR THE DIAMONDS?
Fourteen Test wins, three losses and one draw speak to what went right in 2022 for the Australians: pretty much everything.
Having regained captain Liz Watson from a foot injury, the year started with the Quad Series crown in London, continued with a golden finals defeat of Jamaica at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games and finished with series wins over New Zealand and England.
With the World Cup, starting on July 28 In Cape Town, as the other pinnacle event in this four-year cycle, former great Bianca Chatfield believes all the foundations are now solidly in place.
“In the past couple of years it’s been really hard for the Diamonds, with changes in coaches and changes in players, and when it comes down to it, knowing how to win and knowing how to win together, it doesn’t come easy, and it does take a lot of work,’’ Chatfield says.
“I think that’s what they’ve really proved to everyone now is they know how to do it and they know how to win. It sounds a bit spiritual in a way, but you can play the best game of your life but knowing how to finish it off at the end takes a lot more than just the skills that you put out there during a game.”
The sponsorship kerfuffle, it seems, brought a harmonious group that was admirably steadfast in the face of unreasonable and often ill-informed public commentary even closer still, with Birmingham silver medallists Jamaica and defending champions New Zealand looming as the biggest threats in Cape Town.
Ahead of England, who will probably be too old if they don’t rebuild with some youthful energy and verve, and too inexperienced — individually and collectively — if they do.
For the Diamonds, selection will again be as hotlycontested as a place in Australia’s Test fast bowling battery, with an ever-growing cluster of options to which superstar goaler Gretel Bueta, through the tragic circumstances of a November miscarriage, has now returned.
WHO CAN PUSH THE FEVER?
Chatfield says she is intrigued to see what the Adelaide Thunderbirds can do, given the much-needed addition of England international Ellie Cardwell to an underperforming attack and, more broadly, a team that has not appeared in finals since 2013.
“We knew the Thunderbirds needed another shooting option and now they’ve got one,’’ says Chatfield. “And I think bringing in Cardwell has been so clever.’’
If talking up the T-Birds feels like a game we’ve played before, then the updated theory is that the dynamic duo of Shamera Sterling and Latanya Wilson win more ball than any other defensive pair, so a potent new threat at the other end could be the difference in what will be coach Tania Obst’s fifth season. As the clock ticks.
Elsewhere, just as Watson’s return to the Vixens after missing 2022 was the key to the first-last-second narrative, the fact the NSW Swifts will regain Sam Wallace next season could have a similar impact on the 2021 premiers, who still finished fifth, on percentage, without their Trinidadian target.
Romelda Aiken has been added as training partner insurance, and there are few holes the astute Briony Akle needs to plug elsewhere.
The unchanged Vixens list, meanwhile, has that humbling grand final experience as a driver, and a long-serving core group headed by Watson, Moloney and Jo Weston.
WHAT HOPE ARE THE TWO NEW COACHES?
The Queensland Firebirds (five wins, nine losses) appointed their former premiership defender and Giants/ Swifts assistant Bec Bulley after parting ways with Megan Anderson. Sara Francis-Bayman joins the coaching team from the UK.
Up the highway, the Sunshine Coast Lightning (four wins, 10 losses, one wooden spoon) replaced Kylee Byrne with Ryan’s fever deputy Belinda Russell, a move that coincides with the welcome return of champion Karla Pretorius from a baby break but the loss of young shooter Reilley Batcheldor to an ACL.
‘I’m really intrigued by the Firebirds because knowing Bec Bulley as a player, and I played with her since she was a kid, I feel like she will try to do something differently with the defence end that she has,’’ says Chatfield, with Diamond Ruby Bakewell-Doran to be supported by rookies Ashlee Unie and Remy Kamo.
Elsewhere, during a recruiting period of minimal movement, Kim Jenner’s shift from Brisbane to Perth was among the more notable.
How and how often the highly-penalised defender is utilised given the defensive personnel already at hand will be fascinating, but one imagines Jenner has not travelled 1650km with the expectation of warming the bench.