As Netball New Zealand brainstorm ways to improve the quality of the ANZ Premiership and in turn the national side, a Silver Fern has made a brutally honest admission when asked about a potential avenue to do so.
The Silver Ferns will hope home-court advantage can work in their favour as they try to overturn a 2-0 Constellation Cup series deficit when the Diamonds make the trip south to Invercargill for the third Test. Netball’s decision-makers will also be hoping they can come up with a solution to what seems to be a growing divide between New Zealand and the top nations in world netball.
After New Zealand’s fourth-place finish at the World Cup in South Africa, questions were immediately asked as to what the cause of the Silver Ferns’ disappointing showing was.
Coach Dame Nolene Taurua came into the firing line, as did the ANZ Premiership. New Zealand’s premier netball competition was already under scrutiny for a number of lopsided results in the 2023 edition.
A suggestion has been made that allowing Silver Ferns to play in Australia’s Super Netball would give them the experience of battling week in, week out against Australian players to better their own individual games - and thus the success of the national team - and they could bring insight back across the Tasman for their domestic teams as well.
When Silver Ferns defender Phoenix Karaka, a 2019 World Cup winner, was asked by Newstalk ZB’s Nathan Limm if this was something she’d consider she had a surprise admission to make about the Australian playing style.
“I would love to. But if I’m being brutally honest, their game style is very different to my game style and my strength. So defensively, they’re very tight, they’re very man on and I’ve tried to do that and I can’t last the full game.”
Karaka says she backs the style New Zealand produces and believes if they stick to it the Silver Ferns will be stronger for it.
“You know, I think if we can keep doing, growing our game and the Kiwi style and we stick to that. I think we will grow stronger.”
The Commonwealth Games bronze medallist tells Limm she thinks that adapting their game plans to different opposition and learning from playing against other nations is the way forward.
“I think it’s just trying to find different ways that we can combat different teams, like the same kind of style isn’t going to work for every other team or for every team.”
On the ANZ Championship, Karaka believes organisers deciding to add more imports could go either way in terms of helping or hindering the competition and she likes the fact there is a limit.
“What I enjoy about the the limit on imports is that we’re able to grow the depth - and obviously New Zealand being a lot smaller than Australia, we need to be able to have a platform for our younger players to be able to compete and to be given the opportunities.”
The Silver Ferns now turn their attention to the second leg of the Constellation Cup with the third Test being played in Invercargill on Thursday night.
