Taurua must get Ferns fit again
Not again. First it was the Football Ferns. A few weeks later we heard stories about the hockey players and the cyclists. Then on Thursday night it was New Zealand’s netball players who were the victims of bullying and harassment.
The trouble was, the bullying was happening on the court. The trouble was, the Aussies were doing the bullying. Bigger, better, smarter, at least that’s how the Ockers like to think of themselves – the rough Diamonds were pushing New Zealand’s netballers around.
Some of the Silver Ferns hid from the fight. Ta Paea Selby-Rickit, who had played so well in the victory a few day earlier, completely lost her confidence and her shooting. Even had the ball been the size of an orange, she could not have put it through the hoop.
Then there were the players who were either not fit enough, or not athletic enough, to compete against the very best. Sam Sinclair said after the game: ‘‘It’s going to be a fight at times and we need to muscle up and deal with it.’’
Unfortunately for Sinclair it was also going to be a beep test at times. Australia’s wingattack Kelsey Browne ran Sinclair off the court. Browne would feint one way and then spin off hard in another direction. Sinclair just could not keep up. In the end, coach Noeline Taurua had to drop Laura Langman back to wingdefence just to stop the ease of supply.
Former coach Janine Southby knew that the players were not fit enough. Some of them turned up in December 2015 after one six-week break in no condition to play top-level netball. Unfortunately, Southby did not have the authority to do much about it.
Her coaching came from the Janine and John book of netball. Southby was an institutional coach. She was the product of a system. She spoke the gobbledegook of High Performance New Zealand.
A typical Southby sentence might go something like: ‘‘There were big learnings today. We will go away and debrief it. We need to grow our skill set. I’ve challenged their victim mindset. We’ve narrowed it down to a lack of connection, and time and understanding and trust in each other.’’
In fact that paragraph is a compilation of Southby utterances. But players switch off when they hear this sort of stuff. You would expect an ex-school teacher to communicate better, given that profession’s historical success in sports’ coaching.
When Southby and her assistant were appointed, Steve Lancaster, then Netball New Zealand’s high performance director, said: ‘‘One of the things that really excites me about this combination is that they are both modern coaches. They’ve been through the High Performance Sport NZ coach accelerator programme — they are professional career coaches and have come through that coaching pathway.’’
What institutional gibberish. Coaching is about language and communication. It is about good selection. It is about analysis and strategy. It is about delegation to the right people. Just on that last point, when Southby was appointed, she ignored professional candidates, and appointed Renzie Hanham, a martial arts teacher, to act as team psychologist.
Southby wanted to make mental skills ‘‘less airy-fairy.’’ Since when was sports psychology airy-fairy? The appointment was not a success. After a while Southby said that she had ‘‘challenged him to change the way he delivers the model to the girls.’’
In other words a coach who could not get her message across was telling the amateur psychologist how to communicate. Is it any wonder the Silver Ferns were a mess incapable of even beating Malawi?
And this was the mess that Taurua inherited. It is beyond belief that she was not appointed in the first place, but I suspect there are still many people in this country who are not comfortable around strong, intelligent women of Maori origin. As she said, her face didn’t fit the pale, fail model.
It will be fascinating to see how far Taurua can take this team next year. She has immense challenges. The Ferns are not fit enough. And they are not good enough. They literally have no-one of the stature of Aussie goal-shoot Caitlin Bassett, who is a nightmare to defend.
The Ferns have started to play smarter. They won the third game of the Constellation Cup because they dominated the penalty count. When the Aussies fouled, which they do frequently, the Ferns’ physical reaction drew the umpires’ attention. But with Bassett ruling the airwaves in the final game, the Ferns became less assertive. The Australians were able to dominate South African umpire Anso Kemp.
But more than anything, the Ferns need to get fitter and toughen up. I suspect it will not be an easy summer under Taurua, and nor should it be. In the past the coach has required her teams to paddle up the Whanganui River, walk through the night and climb mountains. And those mountains were not metaphorical ones.
There are strong similarities between netball and football, as doubtless Jane Watson will tell you. Watson was dismayed to have to give up soccer for netball in her youth. Both games are about holding onto possession and finding the space and time to play.
The success of Spain’s tiki-taka football system depends on supremely fit players being able to rotate into space. It evolved from Dutch total football and its supreme exponent is Pep Guardiola. The object is not to hold onto possession for the sake of it, but to manipulate space and opportunity.
Taurua has been heard to urge from the sideline: ‘‘Here we go, work.’’
She wants her team to hang onto the ball without transferring pressure. That means athletic players getting into good positions. That means work. Maria Folau is good at it. Too many others are easily contained.
Gina Crampton is a talented ball player, but as a wing-attack she suffered in comparison with Browne on Thursday night. Crampton’s movement was not as far or as fast and her inability to get free clogs up the attack. As a former wing-attack herself Taurua will know the need to improve Crampton’s athleticism.
But there have been enough improvements already to think that the Ferns can go to next year’s World Cup with a good chance of a medal. The players will get a lot of tough love in the coming weeks. They need it.
In the words of their coach, they’re not out there to rebuild, they’re out there to win.