Southby strives to find right balance

Silver Ferns coach Janine Southby says she’d had to find the middle ground at the team’s trial camp as experience and young player mix.

There are 25 players in camp for a week in Takanini. That number will be cut down to 15 on Monday when the squad is named.

For some triallists it’s a given that they’ll make the cut, but for others their selection is on a knifeedge and Southby has to get the right balance in camp to get the most out of both lots of players.

‘‘We do our best to provide the best environment for all players and there’s got to be an element of being comfortable in your environment to be able to perform,’’ Southby said.

‘‘But you want a bit of an edge to that as well, so it’s not just about the older players being comfortable, it’s about challenging them.

‘‘So we look to challenge them in different ways, we put different combinations out there, we put out different scenarios.

‘‘We put them against people they’ve been playing with all year, so it’s all different ways to get the best out of them, to find the players who put their hands up and ultimately will be selected into the Silver Ferns.’’

The players have been spending all their time together while in camp and while they’re competing with each other to make the Silver Ferns squad, Southby says there’s been a good atmosphere among the players.

‘‘What’s impressed me hugely, is that while they’re competing,’’ she said.

‘‘There’s a sense that they’re all supporting each other too and that’s what we need to have.’’

Performances in this year’s ANZ Premiership played a big part in the selectors deciding who would be invited to the trials.

Southby said there was a big improvement in the quality of the netball over the season and there were benefits from the teams playing against each other three times.

‘‘Round one was a bit like we were finding our feet,’’ she said.

‘‘But there was a massive step up into rounds two and three. What challenged the players was that they were playing against each other regularly, so they got another crack at somebody.

‘‘So any team was able to take on any team and we saw that at times over the season.’’