Diamonds’ substituting caused major headaches to players confidence

Former Australian netball captain Natalie von Bertouch believes the game’s new trend to substitute players in and out of the game was the biggest reason the Diamonds failed in the gold medal game.

Australia’s Caitlin Bassett with Diamonds coach Lisa Alexander after the gold medal game on the Gold Coast. Picture: Hannah Peters/Getty Images

LIKE the rest of the nation, I had tagged Australia’s netball team as Commonwealth Games gold medallists. But how wrong could I be?

The unbeatable were, in fact, beatable and it goes to show that there is no guarantee in sport.

I’m still in shock from the Diamonds’ loss - a devastating blow for Australia but a great result for international netball. Finally we have another nation stamping itself as a serious contender.

So just what went wrong for the Diamonds?

I believe the answer is simple - player rotations.

There is a recent trend in netball to rotate players during a match, and, quite simply, I don’t agree with it. I think it is detrimental to both individual and team performance. There is, of course, a need to rotate players throughout a tournament to keep legs fresh, and there are times that players need to be injected into games to change momentum.

But wholesale changes, like we saw with the Diamonds in the final, in my opinion just does not work. England bucked the new trend and had a settled lineup throughout the Games. Five of its starting seven were rock-solid.

In stark contrast, Australia did not have a settled starting seven and suffered because of it.

Australia lost an almost unlosable game and New Zealand - for the first time since netball’s inception in the Commonwealth Games - missed a medal altogether.

New Zealand’s reason to rotate its players was to try and find a talented seven, while the Aussies had so much depth that they could rotate without having a positive or negative impact on team performance during the rounds because they were simply too good.

However, under pressure things changed. If a starting line is unsettled, it is difficult for players to have a genuine understanding of each other or know exactly what to expect from one another out on court.

It was unbelievable that all 12 players played for Australia in the gold medal match.

This demonstrates a massive shift in tactics over the past few years. Substituting players has major implications for momentum and confidence.

Netball is not football. Players are not removed from the court for a rest. The players should be fit enough to run out an entire match.

When a player is taken off it is because their performance isn’t up to scratch.

In recent times coaches have been too quick to make changes instead of riding the natural ebb and flow of the game. When changes are made, the new player on court almost always makes an error, and those sent to the bench question themselves.

Both these things impact performance negatively. The errors make the team nervous, and if the player is re-introduced the self-doubt means they almost always come back on worse than they left the court.

Kim Ravaillion, our best mid-courter, was a prime example of this. She made a couple of errors in the last quarter that she would almost never normally make. She wasn’t alone - the Diamonds made a series of uncharacteristic errors in the last 15 minutes.

When I played in the 2013 world championships as captain, I made an error that almost lost the game for the team. No single error loses a game, but the timing of the error can. I threw a ball away in the dying minute but, luckily for me, Silver Ferns goalshooter Maria Tutaia missed the shot.

The Diamonds weren’t so lucky this time, and huge lessons will be learnt in games like this. What matters now is how the Diamonds respond.

The players and the coaching staff are hard on themselves, and so they should be - they were the best and yet did not win. They will reflect, and I’m certain coach Lisa Alexander - who prides herself on excellence - will review herself and the players to make sure the result is not repeated at the world championships next year in Liverpool.