Dynamic duo deserve hometown sendoff
Dress in your finest red and black, grab your thundersticks, loosen the vocal cords and get along to the Tactix final home game of the season tomorrow.
The Press doesn’t make a habit of playing cheerleader or promoter – that’s not our job – but tomorrow’s ANZ Championship match between the Tactix and the Northern Mystics at CBS Canterbury Arena is a special occasion.
It will be the last game in Tactix colours at home for stalwarts Maree Bowden and Anna Galvan – two of the region’s most hard-working and loyal servants.
There has been no official word from either player or from the Tactix franchise, which in itself is a shame, but it is understood Bowden and Galvan have told the players of their intentions to hang up their netball dresses.
It is a shame the Tactix aren’t making a bigger deal out of this match than others because Galvan and Bowden deserve a sendoff, plenty of fans will want to wish them well and the side’s final match – an away game in Adelaide where they’re likely to have only a handful of supporters – is hardly the place to do it.
Neither player will want any fuss, but both deserve it.
Skipper Bowden (nee Grubb), 32, is a foundation member of Tactix and the Clyde-born midcourt dynamo has been in red and black since 1999.
She has played 15 tests and is playing some of the best netball of her career this season. Had she not made herself unavailable for higher honours, Bowden would surely have been on Silver Ferns coach Waimarama Taumaunu’s radar.
Galvan (nee Veronese), 33, first rose to national honours in the New Zealand under-21 team while still a schoolgirl at Villa Maria College.
She has played 14 tests for the Silver Ferns and, apart from a stint with the thenSouthern Sting and brief stints out to have her three children, has been a member of the Canterbury side since her teenage years.
Galvan has been used more sparingly this season than in the previous one, but the clever defender with great vision and instincts is still a force to be reckoned with at goal defence.
The departure of Bowden and Galvan leaves an already young Tactix side without clearly its two most senior players. The next oldest player in the squad is Anna Thompson who just turned 26.