TIPPETT TALENT
COAST GUN SET FOR WORLD CUP
GRETEL Tippett can take it to the rack – and that’s saying something on a netball court.
Give her the ball with a goal in sight and she’s gone, a little too briskly for someone manoeuvring a body nearly two metres tall.
And almost every time she arrives – well, 96 per cent of the time if one is citing this season’s Super Netball stats – the Queensland Firebirds goal attack pots her shot.
Whether the Gold Coast product is standing stationary under the post or rapidly gaining air on the ring is another question entirely, and one that makes her very dangerous for all of the Australian Diamonds’ adversaries in various defensive thirds in England over the coming 10 days.
Because Australia’s basketballer turned netballer will keep laying up at the Netball World Cup. There’s just no telling when.
“I can’t shake it,” Tippett said. “As soon as I see that hoop open I’m like, ‘yes, here’s my chance’.
“When I try to do them it means I’m feeling free and relaxed. It’s part of my game and I try to keep it in there as long as possible.
“The shooting coach Megan Anderson tells me to pick my moments when I use it and when I don’t, so it’s a balancing act to when you go for it or pull out and pass off or take the long shot.
“All that decision-making is something I’ve been working on.”
One of netball’s most polarising players, the quietly spoken 26-year-old still invites disapproval from some purists almost as punctually as she lands in the shooting circle.
The most regular accusations are she shows too much physicality and aggression due to her powerful presence and aerial ability.
But some seven years after the former national under-19 basketballer and WNBL rookie of the year made the switch, she’s refined her game to the point Tippett, who can also play at goal shooter and wing attack, is now very much the complete package and a weapon rival countries would love.
Unconventional, yes, but not a single critic can argue she’s not effective.
Even before Tippett’s 2015 Diamonds debut was lauded by teammate Clare McMeniman as one of the best ever, Diamonds coach Lisa Alexander was praising her uncanny capacity to “create indecision in the minds of defenders”.
Diamonds goalkeeper and West Coast Fever captain Courtney Bruce has endured the unenviable task of matching up against Tippett, one sibling of a rare athletic breed also featuring recently retired Sydney Swans AFL big man Kurt and former North Melbourne player Joel.
“Gretel is just ridiculous,” Bruce says. “She’s just so athletic, she’s bloody hard to stop. She’s unorthodox.”