Aftershocks, failed push ups and crying almost every night.

When Jo Harten was sending out homemade DVDs of her Super League and England Roses highlights to every coach in Australia and New Zealand, she couldn’t have imagined quite how far out of her comfort zone she’d be pushed on the other side of the world.

Harten will rack up her 200th ANZ Championship-Super Netball match on Sunday when her Giants take on the Firebirds in Brisbane, joining a stellar playing list including the likes of Catherine Cox, Geva Mentor, Romelda Aiken-George and her playing idol Sharelle McMahon.

It will be a surreal moment for Harten, who started her national league career at just 17, playing for the Mavericks and then Loughborough Lightning in England before winning a contract in the trans-Tasman league, with New Zealand’s Mainland Tactix in 2012.

But joining the Christchurch-based team a year after the massive earthquake that devastated the city and facing aftershocks almost every other week, was eye-opening for a player who also found the professional nature of the world’s best league so confronting she’d go to bed in tears most nights wondering what she’d gotten herself into.

It was a bumpy introduction to life as a professional athlete though and one that leaves Harten shaking her head at the thought of still being in the game a decade later.

“As a 22-year-old, I was just sat in bed crying some nights because I was just so far from home, so scared,” she said.

“But it’s all character building. And once you find you find your way around, you learn to like coffee … you make networks and then you grow.

WHAT HAVE I DONE?

Harten’s teenage Giants teammate Hope White probably doesn’t know what a DVD is.

But the veteran, who has been playing professionally for longer than White has been alive, explained how she’d burn her highlights playing for Loughborough and England on to the discs and send them to head coaches of the Australian and New Zealand franchises in the trans-Tasman league, desperate to earn a playing deal.

While she ultimately ended up with the Tactix in 2012, the first coach to show interest was one Julie Fitzgerald, who wanted to sign Harten as an injury replacement at the Swifts in 2010.

Harten’s then-England coach blocked the deal at the time, leaving her to bide her time for another two years before New Zealand legend Leigh Gibbs enticed the shooter to Christchurch.

“When I look back to that first couple of weeks at Tactix, I knew I had skill as a netball player but I hadn’t been in a professional training environment before and I couldn’t do a push up, and all these girls could do push ups,” Harten said.

“I’ve just come home and then would just go to bed and cry because I hadn’t been able to do a push up that day.

“That was the whole of my world at the time and I was just like, I’m never going to fit in here, I’m not strong enough, I can’t match it with these girls.

“And then over time you train, you work hard, you get better at something, you get more comfortable at something.

“You forget now. It was such a small thing but at the time, it was my whole world because I’d moved my life to the other side of the world.”

Putting herself outside her comfort zone though, Harten was able to make a life not just as a netballer but a member of the her community, despite a change in scenery from Christchurch to Hamilton on the north island.

After their 2010 introduction, Harten and Fitzgerald had kept in touch and when the latter was appointed coach at Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic, Harten found herself there the following season, starting a fruitful coach and athlete journey that has now lasted for more than a decade.

JO AND JULIE

“I think she’s been the best coach I’ve had — that’s kind of the full stop on it,” Harten said of the woman she describes as the “Yoda of netball”.

“She was the coach that gave me the confidence to really flourish into what I wanted to become.

“When I met her, I’d come off the back of some individual success at Tactix but the team wasn’t doing that great and I was a bit unsure if I could actually be a match winner, or if I could really match it, shoot high percentages.

“Under her, I just found some confidence in my game that no other coach has ever been able to match.

“In those early days, I just loved the way she respected all of her athletes – and she had so much respect in return and we were playing for her and wanting to win for her as much as ourselves.”

Fitzgerald isn’t sure that she instilled such belief in Harten. But she had known the first time she saw her play – at the World Youth Cup in the Cook Islands in 2009 – that Harten had “endless potential”.

“Then watching her at Tactix, I could still see that potential but didn’t know that it was actually being developed,” Fitzgerald said.

“But I knew at Magic we could put all the structures around her that would let her grow and I think she’s grown every year that I’ve coached her.

“There’s new elements to her game that have come in every year and to be able to say that after nearly 13 years, that’s a great compliment to her ability to learn. She’s always wanted to be better.”

The growth has not just come on the court though, with Fitzgerald helping mould Harten the player and person.

“I think it’s wonderful for her,” Fitzgerald said of Harten joining the 200 club.

“You look at her history and how young she was when she left home to come over to Australia and New Zealand and play and how much she’s grown not just as a player but a person – and the wonderful things she’s done for us (the Magic and Giants) and England.

“I think it’s a real achievement for her.”

THE GIANTS

Harten, along with Jamie-Lee Price, another who has been by her side under Fitzgerald for more than a decade now, followed her mentor to Australia as a foundation member of the Giants for the inaugural year of Super Netball in 2017.

They played in the grand final that year and again in 2021 in a thrilling derby against the Swifts but have not yet tasted premiership success.

In that time, Harten has shown herself to be one of the league’s greats, a player worthy of a position in the 200 club, even if she still finds it somewhat surreal.

“In 2012 when I moved to New Zealand, I was just desperate to play one game of ANZ (league), like, truly desperate to get on the court, throw and catch a ball, and that was like my life goal almost,” Harten said.

“I guess if I then fast forward to now, and having played 200, I feel privileged, I guess, to play so much fun and exciting netball on the other side of the world. Probably looking back, it’s a dream come true.”

England records from the early stages of their national league are a little sketchy but like former Roses teammate Mentor, who has just retired at age 40 after playing in the Superleague for several seasons either side of a 232 game ANZ Championship-Super Netball career in Australia, Harten has carved out her legacy in the sport half a world away from friends and family, something she’s immensely proud of.

“To kind of carve out a career in enemy territory, as it was back then, does make it special, because it means that you were good enough to match it with some absolute legends of the game,” Harten said.

TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER

Along the journey, Harten has developed into an extraordinary leader – not just of netballers but young women, who she hopes she can help find their place in the sport and in life.

Looking on now at the woman who leads discussion in the Giants’ huddle and mentors fellow shooters Sophie Dwyer and Matisse Letherbarrow, it’s hard to believe this is not just an innate trait.

“That’s definitely developed,” Harten said.

“If I look back to when I was at Tactix, I had impostor syndrome. I didn’t think I was good enough to be there, I didn’t think I was good enough to try and lead an attack end, you’re just there to kind of soak it all up.

“And then as you get confidence in your own game, you know what you can put out and then you try and spill that out on to the young people around you – and I guess a fortunate position for me is that I’m a lot older than some of my teammates now, so I’ve kind of been there and done that, got the T-shirt.

“You go through all these different experiences along the way and then that helps your leadership style and you know the kind of the leader you want to be and then the athlete you want to be … and that’s ever evolving.”

Certainly, Harten doesn’t want anyone coming into the group – young or old, green or experienced – to feel out of place.

It’s why, in part, you’ll occasionally find her on the TikTok feed of teenage teammate White, having been cajoled to perform the latest dance craze or pumping up the tyres of Letherbarrow, the young shooter who’s had to bide her time in her shadow.

“I guess my leadership style, or my teammate style, is that I want everyone to feel like they’ve got a voice, everyone to feel comfortable,” she said.

“I think it’s really powerful if the oldest, most experienced player can have a laugh with the youngest, most inexperienced player in a team and that builds a really strong culture, really strong foundations for a team.

“As the years have evolved, the sport’s got way more professional as well, so kids coming in now face a different type of expectation and pressure that they put on themselves.

“I’d like to think that I set high standards for our training environment, I set high standards for our team but there’s an element of care that comes first and making sure the person is well looked after first and foremost, and then netball comes second after that.”

Certainly it’s something Fitzgerald has noticed.

“She’s certainly been someone who’s always been concerned about others and she has great empathy for people, particularly those ones that have no family around them,” Fitzgerald said.

EDDIE’S MUM

Harten will be recognised as one of the sport’s greats in this country.

But along the way, she’s also come to realise that while netball once seemed like it was her whole world, it is, when all is said and done, just one part of her life.

That is perhaps the thing she is most proud of – that in being forced to constantly step outside of her comfort zone, she has become more comfortable in her own skin.

Now an established Sydney resident, Harten married wife Alex Williams last year, with the couple welcoming a daughter, Eddie – named for Harten’s late Irish nan, a pivotal figure in her life – in April just days before the start of the season.

“I think that’s probably my greatest achievement, is creating a life, finding my wife, having a baby with her, buying a house in Sydney,” Harten said.

“I think 15-20 years ago, if someone said I’d be living in Sydney, 10 minutes from the Harbour Bridge, I’d be like, this is just absolutely bonkers.

“It’s just one of those things where you obviously work really hard for something, but you have to put yourself out there.

“To know what I want outside of the sport – and I’m really proud of kind of the person I’ve become in that aspect.”

IS THIS THE END?

Harten is off contract at the end of the year and while she’s still made no decision about whether she’ll extend her career, it’s certainly closer to the end than the beginning.

The Giants aren’t yet mathematically out of finals contention this season but need to win their remaining three games and have other results fall their way if they’re to scrape into the top four.

For now though, Harten’s focus is back to having fun – maintaining that love of the game that drew her halfway across the world to play the game she loves at the top level.

The injection of former Magic teammate Casey Kopua a few weeks ago – the defender coming out of retirement to help guide the Giants young stars after Jodi-Ann Ward’s season-ending injury – has reunited Harten, Price, Fitzgerald and Kopua in a side suddenly playing with confidence and joy.

“Before I make any final decisions and hang up the bib for good, I just want to enjoy my netball, which is kind of what we’ve been doing at Giants for the last three or four weeks,” Harten said.

“It’s been so special just to just have a smile on your dial when you’re playing – even though we lost the derby (last week) – just having that fun and freedom to play in front of 10,000 people in your home arena.

“Netball is a huge part of my life but it’s got to be fun.

“I’ve taken a lot of pressure off myself the last month, especially of just having that freedom to enjoy the game that I love. Put out some good performances, put out some good shooting stats and then just see what happens.”