Kopua keen to clarify Games comment

There’s a lot going on in people’s lives that can affect them, skipper tells Hamish Bidwell.

Let’s start with a clarification. Casey Kopua’s cryptic post-Commonwealth Games final comment about ‘‘behind the scenes’’ issues sure got people talking.

It was one thing for the Silver Ferns to lose to Australia by 18 goals in the final, but quite another when the captain alluded to other factors potentially having had a detrimental effect on the campaign.

All of a sudden there was secondguessing about who looked happy or sad after the defeat, who was (or wasn’t) talking to whom, who looked reluctant to give an after-match comment. It was a fun game to play, but totally unnecessary in Kopua’s view.

‘‘Yeah I would actually [like to talk about that],’’ Kopua said on the eve of the Silver Ferns trials, which begin in Auckland today.

‘‘What I was meaning was there’s things that go on behind closed doors that people don’t know about. It’s not necessarily negative, but there’s just a lot of things that can affect the way that you take the court. Everybody does their best to leave their stuff at the door when you walk into the stadium, but I certainly didn’t mean that we don’t get along or anything like that.

‘‘There’s a lot of things going on in people’s lives that can affect them. There’s things that people [outside the team] need to know and things that people don’t need to know. But, at the end of the day, we’re there to play and that’s our job.

‘‘I’m not saying there’s a lot of baggage. We’re there to do the business and we all get on.’’

It was not always easy to put distractions aside in a team such as the Silver Ferns, in which so many players are mothers, Kopua said. But she’s adamant the peripheral problems in Glasgow weren’t sufficient to derail their tilt at retaining the Commonwealth title.

As for the reaction afterwards, Kopua said there was no right or wrong way to deal with an 18-goal drubbing.

‘‘I was sort of crying and laughing because I didn’t really know what to do and then you get the angry phase and there’s lots of things you have to do to get over it.’’

Which brings us to today. The 12 who went to Glasgow, plus 14 others, will assemble for four days of training sessions and practice matches, after which 12 players will be chosen for next month’s four tests against Australia.

The team will then be re-selected for the two-test series with England.

‘‘It’s pretty much like Survivor. You keep going and see who’s still alive at the end of the week,’’ said Kopua of the trials.

Shooters Bailey Mes and Ameliaranne Wells appeal as having the most to gain this week. Aside from the odd shooter pulling up lame in Glasgow, a loss of nerve also impacted upon New Zealand’s effectiveness in the attacking circle.

Kopua believes the gulf in standard between the trans-Tasman Netball League and the international arena is so great that, if coach Waimarama Taumaunu and the selectors intend to introduce different personnel for next August’s World Cup, then those players have to be picked now.

‘‘I think there’s time and that’s what the Constellation Cup and the series against England are about. Even Fast 5. It’s not really the same [as seven-a-side netball] but it’s still a chance to get new people involved or people who have been there and bring them back in and get them used to it, because it is a different level.’’