Rob Wright seeking improvements all around with Magpies Netball

Rob Wright’s focus in his first season at the helm of Collingwood Magpies Netball is simply being better.

Collingwood Magpies netball coach Rob Wright. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

Rob Wright’s focus in his first season at the helm of Collingwood Magpies Netball is simply being better. A better team, a better coach, a better support structure, and most important: a better headspace.

When Wright quit his position at the NSW Swifts in July 2017, fans saw a man abandoning his team one year into a four-year rebuild. His players struggled to understand the sudden move.

In reality, Wright was burnt out. Cooked. Emotionally and mentally.

“I certainly didn’t coach very well in 2017,” says Wright. “I worked massive, massive hours. And the nature of that role probably didn’t quite suit me. So I was gone. To the point that people actually don’t realise how bad it was.

“I was in a bad way.”

A year spent as an assistant coach at Collingwood gave Wright the space to reflect, recharge and recover. He says he’s now coaching better than ever.

“I actually feel like it was the best thing for me, because I learned a lot about how to do things better. So that’s what I’m trying to do,” he says.

Wright says there are “lots of things he didn’t do well at Swifts”. Communication with players is a big focal point.

“Sometimes in the heat of the moment, you say things, and you can’t take them back,” he says.

Speaking one month out from the start of the Super Netball season, Wright is cautiously optimistic about the task of turning things around at the Magpies.

Collingwood’s star-studded team collapsed to 10 losses last year and finished second last.

“No one watched us. It was bad. To be brutally honest, it was embarrassing,” says Wright.

But things are already looking up. The Magpies won the inaugural Team Girls Cup at the league’s pre-season competition in Brisbane earlier this month.

That weekend, the Magpies beat city rivals Melbourne Vixens for the first time. It’s a stark shift in mood and momentum from two years ago, when the Vixens stunned a loaded Magpies team in Super Netball’s opening round.

A key plank in that rebuild has been addressing some logistical issues that have plagued Magpies Netball to date.

When Wright was promoted to head coach, club chief executive Mark Anderson told him netball team had seemed like a “bolt-on” at Collingwood, and that he wanted women’s sport to be a core component at the Magpies HQ.

That process started with the hiring last year of Jane Woodlands-Thompson, a widely admired netball coach, in the new position of general manager of women’s sport.

Now players are able to focus fully on their jobs on court.

It’s a small change, but the impact at Collingwood can’t be overstated.

Wright opted to dial things back this pre-season, mindful of a long year of netball ahead as a mid-year Netball World Cup loomed on the horizon.

Star centre Kim Ravaillion was barred from training at the club until January, after she withdrew from national duties in September suffering burn-out.

Wright says: “She came back looking happy for the first time in a number of years. Players said she’s looked the happiest since she’s been at Collingwood.’’

Although Wright is a different coach today than he was two years ago, he hasn’t lost his knack for a quirky gimmick.

This time around, he has built a seven-point scale that the team is grading itself on every week. Two points means losing every match, seven means beating any team in the world.

It’s a surprisingly precise metric: the team sits at a 4.5 today after a pre-season hovering around three points.

“We know at the moment that we’re OK, but we’ve got a hell of a long way to go,” Wright says.

He wants his team to play finals this year, but knows that will be a steep challenge in an extremely competitive league.