When the Silver Ferns struck gold
Tuesday marks the one-year anniversary of the Silver Ferns’ gold medal victory over Australia at the 2019 Netball World Cup. Brendon Egan charts the origins of the team’s spectacular rise.
The seeds for the Silver Ferns’ remarkable World Cup triumph were sown at a gruelling five-day training camp behind enemy lines.
New Zealand ripped up the form book in Liverpool last July, upsetting Australia 52-51 in the final, snapping a 16-year wait for netball’s holy grail.
It was an unflappable performance from the Ferns, who withstood a spirited second half response from the Diamonds. Supreme fitness, mental toughness, seamless attacking connections and committed zone defence were cornerstones of the final win.
Four weeks earlier, Sunshine Coast in southern Queensland, a haven for Kiwi tourists, was the unlikely destination to plot their World Cup rivals demise.
With coach Noeline Taurua and captain Laura Langman involved with the Sunshine Coast Lightning in Australia’s Super Netball, Netball New Zealand had to be creative.
Rather than hold a camp at home without their talismanic duo, the Ferns’ World Cup squad and extended group travelled to them. Taurua and Langman had one game left with the Lightning before Super Netball went into a midseason break for the World Cup.
The mission for the Sunshine Coast camp, held over June 16-21 in Sippy Downs, was to push the Silver Ferns like never before.
A schedule of eight World Cup games over 10 days, including the semifinal and final on consecutive days, meant the Ferns had to be dialled in physically and mentally.
Taurua and assistant Deb Fuller created the camp’s framework in consultation with strength and conditioning coach Stephen Hotter, physio Mark Overington, and team doctor Melinda Parnell.
‘‘If you can imagine a race car and we were all testing the race car and crashing it a few times and seeing what it could do.
It was kind of like that,’’ Fuller told
‘‘It was significant in the fact that we needed to see what people could do under pressure. We needed to see how they responded.’’
Days started in 6am darkness and finished late at night. Three sessions were held daily: lifting, strength work, and court craft, followed by what Taurua called ‘‘repeat effort’’ – constant repetition of the game plan. Mixed in was work around team strategies, routines, and ‘what if’ World Cup scenarios.
‘‘The objective was to put them under mental, emotional and physical stress as much as possible, so we knew what their [training] numbers were and how far we could actually push them,’’ Taurua says. ‘‘They never had much time to rest unless they were asleep at night time.’’
Defender Katrina Rore, one of just seven centurions in Ferns history, describes the Sunshine Coast camp as the most daunting of her 11-year international career.
Rore almost missed the World Cup because of it, straining her calf on the third day in innocuous circumstances. She promptly flew home for medical treatment and eventually proved her fitness for the tournament. They’d toiled so industriously that it took the Ferns players several days to realise a beach was near their accommodation.
‘‘Without a doubt [it was the toughest]. It was brutal, but it had to be. It was a brilliant camp and it definitely pushed everyone to their limits,’’ Rore says.
‘‘When you finish a camp like that you feel really confident in yourself that you’ve put yourself through that and realising that anything that comes up, having one day a game [at the World Cup] is going to feel a lot easier than what we just went through.’’
Fuller vividly recalls one latenight training session at the Caloundra Indoor Stadium.
The team was carrying out an exercise where two attackers were matched up against three defenders, and had to get the ball from one end of the court to the other. It wasn’t going well.
‘‘Noeline wouldn’t let the playing group stop until they got the drill right. She thrashed them and repeated the drill over and over again until it was done the way we needed it to be done. They had to keep going and going.’’
The Ferns returned home and were straight into the Cadbury
Series in Auckland – against the New Zealand men, All Stars (essentially a New Zealand A side of players who missed World Cup selection) and Fiji.
Playing the men live on television, in front of a crowd for the first time, was Taurua’s brainchild and proved a masterstroke.
The Ferns lost both games against the men, including the final, but the results were irrelevant in the big picture.
Taking on stronger, taller, faster athletes was a formidable task and tested the Ferns resolve. Taurua and the players understood if they could match up against the physicality of the men, it wouldn’t be as intimidating against Australia, England and the other leading sides.
‘‘I feel like the Cadbury Series and that Sunshine Coast camp were huge in getting us into that gold medal match and winning it,’’ Rore says.
Upon arriving in England, the Ferns held a four-day training camp in the Essex town of Colchester. Then it was straight into game mode.
New Zealand gained redemption in their opening pool game over Malawi (64-45), who had stunned the Ferns 15 months earlier at the Commonwealth Games.
After easing through games against netball minnows, Barbados, Singapore, Zimbabwe and Northern Ireland, the crunch stage of the tournament beckoned.
CROSSOVER CLIFFHANGER
Three-time reigning world champions Australia were next up in the final crossover game with the winner getting the higher seeding for the semifinals.
Australia looked comfortable, leading by eight goals six minutes into the third quarter. The Ferns didn’t win the game with a Maria Folau fulltime attempt rimming out, but their fourth-quarter rally was a serious statement.
They may have lost by a goal, but knew they hadn’t shown their full hand. Taurua made a raft of substitutions, compared to Australia’s two changes.
‘‘It was a pivotal moment. It was like one of those inflection points where what we saw was the Ferns were down,’’ NNZ chief executive Jennie Wyllie, who attended the tournament, says.
‘‘They fought back and went over the top of them. I think that was the new Ferns. This was the mental fitness, as well as the will to win, wanting to do it for their mates.’’
CRASHING THE ROSES PARTY
Just over 48 hours later, it was door-die: a semifinal against host nation England, in front of a raucous, sold-out Liverpool Arena.
Commonwealth Games gold medallists the previous year, England had beaten the Ferns four times in 2018 and 2019, and were confident, eyeing a dream final against Australia.
‘‘[Before the game] you could see a couple of the [Silver Ferns] girls were like, ‘Look at this crowd’,’’ Fuller says.
‘‘Noeline just turned it all around and said: ‘Isn’t this just amazing. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. How cool is this. These guys don’t want us to win, but what an occasion, let’s just play’. It kind of took all the pressure away from the girls.’’
The Ferns raced out to a 6-1 lead, with England slow out of the blocks and battling to find their attacking connections.
‘‘I think in that first quarter, I can remember Jane [Watson] was on fire. I think she turned over the first four balls and we were able to take it down the other end. We were up and we’d never been in that position against England ever that whole time,’’ Taurua says.
‘‘Out of that the crowd went really quiet straight away and that was that.’’
England hit back and went into halftime 24-21 ahead. Suffocating defence in the third quarter restricted the Roses to nine goals with the Ferns scoring 15. In a frantic final quarter, New Zealand held their nerve to crash England’s party and prevail 47-45.
There was no time to pat each other on the back and reflect on the win. A day later a sixth straight trans-Tasman Netball World Cup final loomed.
GOLD MEDAL GAME
Australia were favourites, having won October’s Constellation Cup series 3-1, but there had been some wobbles from the Diamonds late in the World Cup. In the semifinal, they stuttered to an unconvincing 55-53 win over South Africa.
Wyllie had never been more nervous before a netball game than the England semifinal. It was a different story on the day of the final.
‘‘It was calm. We were at peace because we’d come so far and we couldn’t control the outcome on the court.
‘‘I remember going into the team hotel before [the final] and they were very relaxed. They were there as a unit and Casey [Kopua] putting her incredibly long arms on my shoulder and she said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ve got this’. I was like, this is going to be epic.’’ Epic it was.
The Ferns made a sluggish start, trailing 8-4, but got into their rhythm late in the first term to draw level at 10-10.
‘‘I think in that first quarter especially, Maria [Folau] didn’t start that well. She missed some shots and probably at that time I was on the verge of making a change,’’ Taurua says.
‘‘Then all of a sudden, I don’t know what happened, she came alive and next minute she became a possessed woman.’’
New Zealand took a 28-25 edge into halftime and Diamonds coach Lisa Alexander rang the changes, pulling off goal attack Steph Wood, wing defence Jamie-Lee Price and goal keep Courtney Bruce.
Heading into the final quarter, the Ferns clung to a 41-37 lead and were ready for Australia’s inevitable fourth quarter surge.
A silky smooth finish from Ameliaranne Ekenasio with 1min 4sec remaining gave New Zealand a crucial 52-50 advantage. Australia replied quickly through skipper Caitlin Bassett.
Langman fired off the centre pass with 46sec left with the Ferns producing the ultimate display of ‘keep away’, flicking off 15 passes to
Silver Ferns World Cup winning squad: Laura Langman (c), Maria Folau, Ameliaranne Ekenasio, Te Paea SelbyRickit, Bailey Mes, Gina Crampton, Shannon Saunders, Karin Burger, Katrina Rore, Jane Watson, Casey Kopua, Phoenix Karaka.
Road to the title:
Preliminaries stage one: beat Malawi 64-45, beat Barbados 78-25, beat Singapore 89-21
Preliminaries stage two: beat Zimbabwe 79-36, beat Northern Ireland 77-28, lost to Australia 50-49 Semifinal: beat England 47-45
Final: beat Australia 52-51
deny Australia possession.
As the fulltime whistle sounded, shock, relief and jubilation were the over-riding emotions.
‘‘I think it was just the pride and us actually getting the job done, but also in the manner we did – the shifts we’ve all made as individuals and the experience we’ve had, well for me during that 11 months [as coach], it couldn’t have finished in such a better way,’’ Taurua says.
‘‘It was a bit like a fairytale, actually.’’
Just 15 months earlier, under previous coach Janine Southby, the Ferns were a mess, finishing fourth at the Commonwealth Games, and failing to medal for the first time.
Taurua’s tenure started with plenty of teething problems as she attempted to build depth and trial combinations. The Ferns dropped seven of their first nine games after Taurua took charge in August 2018.
After losing World Cup finals in 2007, 2011 and 2015 to Australia, Kiwi netball greats, Langman, Folau and Kopua, affectionately dubbed ‘the fossils’ by Taurua, finally had their hands on the prize.
‘‘I have real joy in the fact we did it for the likes of Maria and Casey, who have given their heart to the Ferns for so many years,’’ Langman says.
‘‘If anything it really reminded me that it doesn’t matter how bumpy or smooth the journey is, the outcome will always be the outcome. Because you have a s**t lead-up doesn’t mean you’re not going to have a good tournament.’’
AFTERMATH
The Silver Ferns’ rags-to-riches storyline wasn’t finished.
At February’s Halberg Awards, they claimed the Supreme Award, New Zealand’s favourite sports moment of the year, and team of the year.
Taurua added coach of the year to her Dame Companion in the New Year’s Honours List.
‘‘They’ve earned every accolade they’ve been given. The turnaround was massive, but it wasn’t done without brave decisions and hard work on everyone’s behalf,’’ Wyllie says.
‘‘It was a stunning turnaround, led by an amazing culture, under a great leader, with incredible athletes that did everything they could to win that World Cup.’’