Harrison’s swansong boost for Mystics
IT’S a shame that you can’t retire numbers in netball like you can in other sports.
If that was the case, then at the end of this ANZ Premiership season, the GK, GD or WD bib she’s worn at the Northern Mystics would be raised to the roof of the Trusts Arena in honour of captain Anna Harrison.
The 35-year-old will retire at the end of the season, ending an association with netball in Auckland that began when she moved from Otago in 2005, albeit with a stint out of the game to play professional beach volleyball.
She chose to retire from international netball at the end of last year, but decided to have one more roll of the dice with the Mystics.
‘‘Last year when I was looking at retiring, it was going to be from everything, and I was going to go cold turkey,’’ Harrison said.
‘‘Then I went through the process of talking to a few people to get my head around it, because it’s a big decision.
‘‘But playing another season for the Mystics and building on what we did, really appealed to me.
‘‘It was a really nice way to ween myself off netball, because netball and volleyball have been a big part of my life.
‘‘It would have been a lot harder to retire at the end of last year, when I had nothing because I didn’t have the Silver Ferns.
‘‘It’s been good to have the time to figure out where I might head after sport.’’
With a fairly sizeable turnaround of the playing rosters in the premiership this season, some are predicting this to be the Mystics’ year.
They have recruited well, bringing in Jaime Hume from the Steel, giving more depth to the shooting department and covering for the times when Maria Folau won’t be with the team.
Phoenix Karaka will do likewise with the depth at the other end of court, returning to the Mystics after time away at the Steel and Pulse.
It should mean that the Mystics are more consistent this year. They were susceptible to having horrific patches of play last year, never more so than when they lost 46-57 to the Canterbury Tactix.
That result brought tears to the eyes of Tactix coach Marianne Delaney-Hoshek and almost meant the Mystics missed out on a spot in the playoffs to the Magic. ‘‘No one likes losing,’’ said Harrison. ‘‘That inconsistency was more from trying new stuff and trying to put the learnings into place.
‘‘Before, there were more a few other issues that were making us inconsistent.
‘‘But I felt there was a good shift in the way people were coming to training and wanting to learn.
‘‘I hope this year people will see more consistency and a style of netball that’s fun to watch, some great flair, Auckland has always been known to have that X-factor in particular, but in defence creating more ball, more turnovers.’’ This will be the second year of the new domestic competition, since the split with Australia and it was promoted as a way to help the Ferns to return to playing a Kiwi style of netball, which would lead to better results.
‘‘It is an interesting time for netball,’’ Harrison mused.
‘‘In another year or two I could say if it’s been good or bad.
‘‘Personally, I do miss playing the Australian teams, I think it adds an extra bit of spice.
‘‘It doesn’t mean though that our netball is going down, because for many years that I was involved, we only had our national league and we were winning games internationally, so I don’t think it’s the be-all and end-all.
‘‘You need the sport to grow. Everyone is going on about how we’re teaching all these international players how to play and now they’re beating us.
‘‘But we want to grow the sport, who wants to watch a Commonwealth Games where you’re waiting for the final between Australia and New Zealand?
‘‘Which is pretty much how it was when I started in 2006 at Melbourne. PHOTOSPORT