Generation Next’s World Cup test

Australia are dominant in world netball, but enter next week’s World Cup knowing it will define this generation’s reputation

The Australian Diamonds squad before departing for the World Cup. Picture: Darren Leigh Roberts

Australia have dominated world netball for the past four years, but enter next week’s World Cup knowing they will define this generation’s reputation after falling short in the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

“This is our true test,” head coach Lisa Alexander said. “There’s no other way to say it, we can’t ignore that. We didn’t get the result we wanted last year, so it makes us hungrier for this result.”

It’s also the ultimate test for ­Alexander’s reign as head coach of the world’s most prestigious netball program. She is currently contracted until the end of 2020, with an option to extend until 2022.

Netball works in four-year ­cycles, culminating in the World Cup. No coach has seen their team under-deliver at both tournaments in a cycle and survived.

Alexander’s time in charge has been enormously successful, on and off the court. But she acknowledges that this 2019 team are the ultimate barometer of her stewardship.

“I don’t shy away from that at all,” she said. “I’ve been coaching many of the players in this team, or have had something to do with them (for the past) eight years.”

Many people, according to ­Alexander, would say that her gold-medal winning side in the 2015 World Cup was built on the bones of the 2011 team led by her predecessor Norma Plummer.

Since that win in Sydney, though, she has set about refreshing the team with a new generation of talent, and a new style of management. Nine of the 12 players currently selected made their Diamonds debut in this period, and the spine of the current team was identified and introduced to the Australian squad in the wake of the last World Cup.

Many of those players, including the much-critiqued basketball convert Gretel Tippett, have taken some time to find their feet but are now hitting career-best form in time for netball’s pinnacle tournament.

Alexander also forged ahead with a rotational system and a more democratic leadership style that rankled the sport’s traditionalists.

Amid all this change, the Diamonds have kept winning, and ­retained the reputation as the world’s best team despite some fierce competition. Jamaica, currently ranked second by the International Netball Federation, are as close on points to South Africa in fifth as they are to Australia.

The host nation England Roses enter the 2019 World Cup with plenty of swagger after snatching Commonwealth Games gold from Australia a year ago, but the Diamonds have won six of the past seven tournaments.

But this year’s team are different, said Alexander. She has picked an underrated team with an unknown quantity, missing some of the experienced veterans that ­underpinned last year’s Gold Coast squad.

“It’s an enormous challenge for us, this World Cup,” she said. “Comm Games, we were at home, an experienced line-up, the best team we could pick at that time, a team that should win. This team is a little bit of an unknown quantity … and we’ve got some great opponents.”

She doesn’t see this World Cup as a gold-or-bust situation, given the increased competition from the likes of England, New Zealand, South Africa and Jamaica. But betting markets have installed the Diamonds as healthy favourites to take home a 12th World Cup trophy.

Australia begin their campaign on Friday against Northern Ireland, followed by matches against Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka. After that, the team pools will be shuffled, and the Diamonds will play another three matches including a likely game against the Silver Ferns.