The Silver Ferns have finished their final training camp on home soil and are about to leave for the northern hemisphere, where they will chase a place on the podium at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games later this month.
Coach Dame Noeline Taurua’s side wrapped up a three-day block in Auckland this week and will fly out on Friday. The team heads first to Manchester for a further camp before moving on to Scotland, where the netball tournament runs from 23 July to 2 August. New Zealand open their campaign against the hosts on 25 July, and Taurua likes what she has seen from her group in the closing weeks of preparation.
“I would say we’ve exceeded where I thought we were going to be, so that’s a good start,” Taurua told RNZ.
A large part of that confidence comes from the players who spent this year across the Tasman. For the first time, Netball NZ loosened its eligibility rules to let contracted Silver Ferns play in Australia’s Super Netball competition, and five members of the Glasgow squad took up the chance. Shooter Grace Nweke, captain Karin Burger, midcourter Maddy Gordon, defender Kelly Jackson and midcourter Kate Heffernan all spent the season in the tougher weekly grind of the Australian league, and Taurua believes it has sharpened them.
“They seem to be hardened campaigners, and just their forcefulness about what’s required out on court, their intensity is just like another level,” she said. “They’ve got a look in their eye and they want to win they want to perform and that’s what they’re going to do so you know that’s rubbing off in our group because they’ve been in a full-time programme.”
The move was not without risk. Playing overseas kept the players away from the domestic ANZ Premiership and from the day-to-day contact with the national coaching staff. Taurua’s read is that the trade-off has paid off, giving her a spine of players who have been tested week after week against the best defenders and shooters in the region. Gordon, who spent the year with an Australian club, has no regrets about the season she signed up for.
“Loved it, lots of learnings, but that’s what I intended with the move,” Gordon said.
Burger will lead the side in Glasgow, with Kate Heffernan named as her deputy. The Silver Ferns co-captain from recent seasons said the honour had not quite sunk in as the team counted down the final days before departure.
“It feels a little bit surreal still at the moment,” Burger said. “It’s really awesome to be able to carry that torch for the girls, but knowing that they’re all backing me as well.”
The 12-strong squad Taurua named last month mixes hardened internationals with a wave of newcomers. Nine of the players will be making their Commonwealth Games debut in Glasgow. Defender Kelly Jackson brings the most Games experience, returning for a third campaign, while Nweke and Kate Heffernan are both heading to their second. That balance between old heads and fresh legs is something Taurua keeps coming back to.
“The great thing is that we’ve got quite a nice balance in this team in regards to those ones who have been away and the new ones coming through,” she said.
The final preparation has not been entirely smooth. Midcourter Kimiora Poi has been managing a calf problem, while defender Catherine Hall is working her way back from foot surgery and has spent time in a moon boot. Both were named in the squad, and how quickly they reach full sharpness could shape Taurua’s combinations once the tournament starts.
New Zealand return to Glasgow with unfinished business at the venue. The Silver Ferns last played a Commonwealth Games there in 2014, when they took silver after losing the final to Australia. The years since have been a rollercoaster. New Zealand missed the medals entirely at the Gold Coast in 2018, finishing fourth, before rebuilding to claim bronze at Birmingham in 2022 with a win over England. The team’s two Commonwealth golds came earlier, in Melbourne in 2006 and Delhi in 2010, and a nation that measures its netball against Australia is hungry to climb back towards the top step.
Getting there will not be easy. Australia remain the benchmark, England have grown into a genuine force since their stunning win on the Gold Coast, and Jamaica have the individual talent to trouble anyone on their day. The Silver Ferns will need their overseas-hardened core to fire and their debutants to hold their nerve on a stage most of them have never played on.
For now, the focus is simply on getting the group to the United Kingdom and settled. The Manchester camp gives Taurua a last chance to fine-tune her line-ups away from the noise of competition before the Silver Ferns walk out against Scotland on 25 July to begin their bid for a first Commonwealth Games gold in sixteen years.
Do you think the Silver Ferns have the squad to reach the podium in Glasgow? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
Leave a Reply