Constellation Cup: Why Diamonds won't dwell on NZ losing streak
The Diamonds have lost their past nine games in New Zealand but one performance expert says they’re right not to dwell on the record, instead backing their mindset for the tournament decider.
Renowned performance psychologist Dr Phil Jauncey has backed the Australian netball team’s refusal to sweat over their New Zealand hoodoo, warning the Diamonds against getting caught up in a “passive crud” mindset.
Instead he believes remedying specific issues identified in their last match against the Silver Ferns will create the “active mindset” the Aussies needed to win.
The Diamonds lost the third leg of the Constellation Cup 61-52 to the Silver Ferns in Hamilton on Sunday, their ninth successive defeat in New Zealand, stretching back to 2021.
Ahead of their trip across the ditch – after beating the Ferns by 17 goals in back-to-back matches in Melbourne and Sydney – coach Stacey Marinkovich said her team would not address its form in New Zealand specifically, although it was obviously aware of the record.
And she was maintaining that rationale ahead of Wednesday’s game in Christchurch, adamant a focus on skill execution and specific issues identified after reviewing Sunday’s match was a better course of action than dwelling on the past.
It’s a plan Jauncey agrees with firmly.
“I find hoodoos and things like that crazy,” he said.
“One of the things that you don’t want to have in sport is what I call a passive mindset.
“Passive mindset is ‘I hope we do well; I hope I don’t do badly; I hope we win; hope we don’t lose’ and so forth. And that only helps players lose.
“What you really want to do is always go out and say, ‘how do I execute?’ What they have to really work out is, what have they done differently in New Zealand that they didn’t do in (Australia).”
Jauncey’s thoughts reflect the actions the Diamonds have put into place since Sunday’s clash in Hamilton, in which one particularly poor quarter cost them the match.
While they have examined the game tape forensically, Marinkovich said they had also targeted specific areas for improvement, rather than “nit picking” every play.
“We were able to really identify what it was that they lifted their intent around,” Marinkovich said of an improved Ferns performance.
But rather than attribute that to a hostile environment – something the Diamonds players are used to entering in Super Netball matches, and have dealt with well in benchmark finals at Commonwealth Games and World Cup finals – Marinkovich said her team had normalised the atmosphere and drilled down into how they could respond to the various specific scenarios, such as the Ferns’ outstanding box defence.
“It’s tough in those environments ... (but) it’s understanding that we’re well attuned to that and it’s (about) staying really connected and being able to understand what’s going really well,” Marinkovich said.
“We’re very aware of (our record in New Zealand). The beauty of the group, is we can have those really good conversations to put (performance) into perspective.”
The Diamonds are, for the first time, travelling with a sports psychologist and wellbeing consultant, Jacqui Sandland, although her focus has been more on squad cohesion with a bigger picture focus on the future, rather than just the current New Zealand tour.
Jauncey, whose focus is solely on performance, said the Diamonds understanding why they didn’t deliver and being able to get rid of the “handbrake” on execution was much more important than responding to a perceived hoodoo.
“I’d say that’s a good active mindset,” he said when told the Diamonds had identified areas of the game in which they could have executed better.
“Passive mindset is: ‘We want to do well, we don’t want to do badly, we can’t let our fans down’. That’s all passive crud. You can’t control that.
“You can accept disappointment. But regret is where you didn’t execute the way you could have executed.
“If at the end of the game, New Zealand are a better team, and they just execute better, and Australia lose, that’s disappointing.
“But what I’m hearing is they felt regret about the third quarter because they didn’t execute.
“So what the coaches told you (about eliminating the specific handbrakes for execution), I’d be saying, spot on.”
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Originally published as Constellation Cup: Why Diamonds won't dwell on NZ losing streak
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