Aussie admiration for ‘chairlift’ move
‘‘We’ve seen it before but I’ve never seen it done so beautifully.’’ Kate Palmer ‘Lion dance’ first lift
Far from likening the Northern Mystics’ lineout-lifting tactic to New Zealand’s equivalent of the underarm delivery, Australian netball’s hierarchy and players looked up to the innovation that elevated Anna Harrison into the sport’s folklore.
Attempts to stir up transTasman antagonism in the aftermath of the Mystics cunning 49-45 defeat of the Melbourne Vixens on Sunday never gained traction yesterday as Netball Australia officials and long-standing players – past and present – expressed admiration for the tactic which enabled the Silver Ferns defender to intercept goal-bound shots after she was lifted by Kayla Cullen or Jessica Moulds.
Netball Australia chief executive Kate Palmer encapsulated the awestruck reaction across the Tasman when declaring: ‘‘We’ve seen it before but I’ve never seen done so beautifully.
‘‘I have to say it’s spectacular and as an old defender I look at it and think it’s brilliant: the defenders fight back.’’
Rather than cry foul, Palmer, who is also on the board of the International Federation of Netball Associations (IFNA) said the strategy should be embraced – not eradicated by a rule change.
‘‘It’s great for the game that athletes like Anna are doing things like that. I can’t wait to see the tactics put into play by the attack end to stop it from happening.’’
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She cheekily suggested one way of combating the towering obstacle was for a shooter to also hoist her partner ‘‘and pop the ball in the ring’’. ‘‘Why not?’’ she asked.
A major rules review by IFNA is scheduled for 2015 and Palmer doubted the ‘‘Harrison Hoist’’ or ‘‘chairlift’’ would be reviewed until then, if at all.
Netball Australia’s umpiring director Chris Burton also marvelled at Harrison’s athleticism and railed against lifting being outlawed.
‘‘I think we’ve got to be a bit smart and a bit excited about it.
‘‘I’m not sure it’s done a lot of harm. It’s not’s the underarm incident, that was totally disrespectful to everything.’’
Burton argued if defenders could be supported by their partner when leaning towards a shooter or when they were going out of play to seek a pass or rebound, it was within the spirit of the game for them to also lift each other.
Even veteran shooter Cath Cox appreciated the innovation after watching Melbourne’s Karyn Howarth stand perplexed as Harrison rose to thwart her.
‘‘They’ve found a new element to their defence.’’
Cox said former Australian defender Liz Ellis suggested the same tactic about a decade ago but it was confined to the Diamonds practice court.
‘‘I think it’s incredible they’ve managed to time it and achieve it in a game,’’ Cox said. ‘‘It’s not ideal for us [shooters] though as far as I’m concerned, good on them. It’s obviously a hard thing to do, they can’t do that every shot. For the most part they’re playing normal netball.’’
Ellis told her Twitter feed she had witnessed ‘‘one of the best defensive plays ever . . . 1 it was spectacular, 2 it was legal.’’ Cantabrian Kate Carpenter, former Central Pulse coach, now coach of Singapore, said her side devised a ploy they called the ‘‘lion dance lift’’ to combat 2.06-metre Sri Lankan shooter Thargini Sivalingam at the 2011 World Championships.
With her tallest defender just 1.74m, innovation was needed to disrupt a steady supply of ball to the towering but relatively immobile shooter.
Premila Hirubalan (1.7m tall) came up with the idea of lifting vice-captain Lin Qingyi. Sri Lanka still won 62-51, but the previous time the sides met the margin had been close to 30 goals.
‘‘We here in Singapore, we’re go- ing ‘ hey, that’s ours!’ They came up with the idea, and they kind of perfected it,’’ Carpenter said.
‘‘We were using it a bit differently [to the Northern Mystics], we were trying to intercept the ball before it got to Thargini. The lift is exactly the same.
‘‘It’s difficult to do and get the timing right. Why it works for us is we’re strong, but we’re also light. We got some deflections and it will be something we will use again.’’
Singapore was abuzz when news of the Mystics-vixens game reached its players, Carpenter said. ‘‘I got a lot of text messages this morning, saying, ‘Hey, they’re claiming it’s never been done before’.’’