Lightning strikes anywhere that Taurua goes
SMART, authentic but most of all a winner, Noeline Taurua must make any shortlist of Australasia’s finest coaches.
On Sunday, Taurua will attempt to guide her Sunshine Coast Lightning to a third straight Super Netball title in her farewell match – against NSW 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 New Zealand, until a knee injury ended her playing days in 1999, Taurua found her calling in coaching.
In her home country, she won two national championships and a trans-Tasman 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.
Transferring her talents across the Tasman, when the new, world-leading 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.
In between, Taurua quickly and quietly transformed the New Zealand team, taking over in 2018 after they missed the medals at the Commonwealth Games for the first time.
“The work that she’s done over three years is nothing short of remarkable,’” Lightning captain Laura Langman said of the 51-year-old.