And the Countdown Begins
They’re a tired but satisfied bunch after another intense training session on Auckland’s North Shore as preparation for the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games heats up.
The latest Netball world rankings from the International Netball Federation (INF) were released on Wednesday with Australia ranked 1st in the world, and NZ second ahead of England and Jamaica in third and fourth respectively.
The Ferns lost four times to Australia last year and handed back the Constellation Cup after the five-test series, however bounced back in October to beat Malawi and in January, beat England and Jamaica in the United Kingdom.
Each test match every Netballing nation plays accumulates points and over the course of the past 12 months, the Australian Diamonds number 1 status has underlined their credentials as favourites heading into this months’ Commonwealth Games in Scotland.
The Silver Ferns are taking this upcoming campaign seriously as they compete for a three-peat of Commonwealth Games gold medals after winning in Melbourne in 2006 and Delhi in 2010.
Silver Ferns coach Waimarama Taumaunu and assistant coach Vicki Wilson have been putting the team through their paces for the past few weeks with an intense schedule designed to wipe out any complacency.
“Physically it’s been pretty demanding and they’re all tired,” Taumaunu said.
“They had weights this morning, a Netball session this morning, we’ll do a match this afternoon and a team meeting during the afternoon as well.”
There hasn’t been much downtime with the schedule jam-packed to make the most of every minute the team are together. Coming from as far south as Dunedin, the opportunity to have the whole team and management together for the first time this year has been eagerly anticipated by the Ferns coaches.
“Monday was a battery of fitness tests, just to check we’re in the right shape and I was pretty pleased with the results,” Taumaunu said.
“We then had some individual skill sessions and a 50 minute shooting session for the shooters. The following day was a skill session in the morning plus shooting plus on-court and the focus on that was in-circle attack and defence.
“The afternoon was more shooting, more skill work and the focus of that afternoon was centre pass attack and defence. Similarly Wednesday morning was the same and we had a game on Wednesday afternoon,” she said.
“The focus of Thursday was through-court attack and defence and another game in the afternoon.”
To help with preparation and practice matches, the team have invited a few men and even two Australian players to train against to try and simulate the types of teams they’ll face in Glasgow.
After a hectic but fulfilling week, the team will head home Friday afternoon to recover before meeting again next week. The Silver Ferns fly out to Bath in the UK on July 14th for one week before making their way up to Glasgow. Their first match is against Malawi on July 25th at 8.30pm (NZ time).