Isabelle Shearer earning comparisons with Laura Geitz as Queensland Firebirds push for a return to Super Netball finals
It’d be tough to label Izzy Shearer the “new Geitzy” but if anyone can shoulder the burden of following in the footsteps of the premiership-winning former Firebirds and Diamonds captain, it’s the second-year wonder.
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Izzy Shearer was just eight years old when the Queensland Firebirds won their first premiership.
Thirteen when they won their last.
That was almost a decade ago now and as Shearer enters her second year on the club’s list of full-time contract holders, it’s seven years since the club made its one and only Super Netball finals appearance.
The Firebirds are arguably Super Netball’s greatest underachievers.
But Shearer sees a light on the horizon.
Among the first pre-season orders of business for new coach Kiri Wills was getting her squad to sit down and watch the 2011, 2015 and 2016 grand finals.
“We just looked at how much grit they showed and how much relentlessness, professionalism - all the words that we use now coming into this season, as our core values,” Shearer said.
“We’re really trying to replicate the feeling of those games … it was good to watch the battle and watch how they came together as a team.”
Shearer watched on as her idol Laura Geitz, the former Firebirds and Diamonds captain, lifted the trophy.
The team’s performances inspired the entire current squad, but ignited a burning desire in Shearer to follow in Geitz’s footsteps.
There are already plenty of similarities between the pair. A towering 190cm blonde goalkeeper, Shearer is almost a carbon copy of Geitz - same hight and build, with a competitive hunger just as fierce.
It’d be tough to label the 22-year-old the “new Geitzy” but if anyone can shoulder the burden, it’s the Rockhampton product, who would love to emulate the woman whose statue stands outside the club’s Nissan Arena headquarters.
“That Geitzy era is something that I definitely watched as a kid,” Shearer said.
“Geitzy did a clinic one time up in Rocky and I was just starstruck.”
The lanky youngster was already a goalkeeper but getting tips from her idol reinforced her dream of following in her footsteps.
Shearer played seven games in her first season after making her debut with three minutes off the bench against the Vixens in round 4.
It was the following week against West Coast Fever and their towering goaler Jhaniele Fowler-Nembhard - a woman often rated the best shooter in the world - though, and the return match in the second-round of the season, that Shearer gave a glimpse of the player she hopes to be with a performance that marked her as a rising star.
Shearer and co will face plenty of tall timber this season - but none greater than newly-arrived teammate Mary Cholhok, who, at 201cm, is the tallest player in the league and a great daily adversary.
“I’m so excited to start training against her. It’s going to be so good for us as defenders to be training on her every day so we can take on any shooter in the comp,” Shearer said.
“I got to have a game against Jhaniele last year and I learnt so much from that.
“I’m keen to keep working on things and learning with Mary, learning from Mary, learning with Ruby and Ash (fellow defenders Rugby Bakewell-Doran and Ash Barnett). It’s so exciting.”
Already Bakewell-Doran, a capped Diamond, has seen a new level of intensity in Shearer.
“Giz (Shearer) has just stepped up in all the ways. She’s so strong - just her mental game too. She’s really taken up that (goalkeeper) position and is like, ‘I’m ready for it, I’m going to fight for that spot out on court’,” Bakewell-Doran said.
“Honestly, it’s unreal. (That hunger) is not even in moments now, it’s consistently, every time she takes the court in training she wants that ball. It’s so good to watch.”
Originally published as Isabelle Shearer earning comparisons with Laura Geitz as Queensland Firebirds push for a return to Super Netball finals
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