Could a stacked Lightning outfit pull off a miracle and win it all after finishing fifth last year?
How is your team shaping up with all the off-season ins and outs ahead of the Super Netball season? EMMA GREENWOOD has a look at each club leading into the first centre pass of 2024.
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The first centre pass of the season may still be a week away but is it even necessary?
Forget the 14 preliminary rounds and the finals.
Stop the season, let’s just give the trophy to the Sunshine Coast Lightning now.
Surely the addition of Diamonds captain Liz Watson and Courtney Bruce – acknowledged at last year’s World Cup as the best defender in the world – to complement the already potent shooting mix of Australian goaler Cara Koenen and former Diamonds vice-captain Steph Fretwell, gives the Lightning an unbeatable combination.
No? Certainly it’s not what the Lightning are saying.
Rumours about the pair heading to the Coast were swirling long before the official contracting period could start and there’s been plenty of rogue talk among Super Netball fans about “buying” a title.
The addition of Watson and Bruce gives Sunshine Coast an outstanding team but the club did not make the finals last season and struggled for consistency.
Does the addition of two players, even ones the calibre of Watson and Bruce make for a premiership?
Coach Belinda Reynolds thinks talk the team has the trophy in the bag is quite laughable.
“I find that really fascinating,” Reynolds said of talk her side was the competition favourite.
“When we were doing our recruitment, we were saying we’ve done really well … but my PA (performance analyst) was saying that last year the Swifts had 400-plus international caps on court and the Vixens had 280 caps.
“We have 240-odds caps this year in our team plus three first-time contracts in Leesa (Mi Mi), Ash (Ervin) and Ava (Black), who all came in as replacement players last year, so it’s their first time that they’ve been given full-time contracts and also Reilley Batcheldor only really has one season under her belt and then she suffered that ACL injury.
“So it’s quite interesting to say we are earmarked as one of the number one teams to beat.”
That’s not to say Reynolds thinks her team will be also-rans.
“I certainly think we are (among those to beat),” she said.
“Our top tier is very established players, it’s a great spine.
“I think the determining factor in how well we do is bringing that next level of depth through.
“And I think the leaders we have there are bringing that next level through.”
The headline acts may be their Australian and ex Diamonds players, yet the biggest signing for the Lightning in the off-season may be young midcourter Mi Mi.
A training partner at the Queensland Firebirds for the past few years, Mi Mi grabbed her chance as a temporary replacement player for the Purple Birdies last year but when the Brisbane club was not offering any longer than one-year on a full-time deal, she headed up the Bruce Highway.
Certainly it’s a move that looks to be paying off both Mi Mi and the Lightning.
At the pre-season Team Girls Cup, Mi Mi was the talk of the tournament with her speed and agility and a blossoming combination with Watson that looks set to bear fruit for her new club.
Watson is working well with her young counterpart and while it’s the first time they’re combining, she needed no reminder about my Mi Mi’s prowess.
The 22-year-old ran the Aussie captain ragged in the Firebirds’ surprise 76-71 victory over the Watson’s former team, the Vixens, in First Nations round last year.
“I do remember that game, she smacked us back at Nissan Arena when she was with the Firebirds,” Watson said.
“With Lise, you just know what you’re going to get, she’s very, very definite in her moves and how she plays the game – and she just works incredibly hard.
“She’s someone who is so passionate and grateful for her opportunity as well, so I think when you put all that together, she’s great.”
While Watson is mentoring Mi Mi and young wing defence Ava Black, Bruce is adding to the game of emerging goalkeeper Ash Ervin in defence, while Batcheldor is under the wing of Fretwell and Koenen at the attacking end.
And it’s not just the young players learning.
Watson and Bruce are determined not to be stagnant in their growth either.
“They’ve both got to a point in their career where they want to be challenged as well,” Reynolds said.
There are plenty of others that will have a say in whether the Lightning dominate though.
Watson may have left the Vixens but the Melbourne side’s Team Girls Cup performance showed they are anything but finished.
The midcourt vacancy has been ably filled by young gun Hannah Mundy, whose drafting into the Diamonds training camp ahead of the South African series last year speaks to her raw talent.
When Watson was forced out for the 2021 season with a foot injury, Mundy stepped up and while she struggled at times that year, in part because the Vixens also had a new goal attack, she’ll enter the 2024 season raring to go and was too good a player to be left sitting on the bench.
“Lizzie has been around at the club for so long and we thank her for everything she’s done for the Vixens,” captain Kate Moloney said.
“(But) we’ve got someone who’s ready to step up, and I think that’s really exciting.
“Hannah (over) the last three or four years has been around at the Vixens and ... I can’t wait to see what she can do with the full season out there on court.”
The Vixens could be without Jo Weston for the start of the year, the Diamonds defender battling a lower leg injury that kept her out of the Team Girls Cup.
They have the depth to cover that, at least in the short term, and are likely to be in the finals mix again.
So too the Swifts, who are determined to break the Team Girls Cup curse after lifting the trophy at Ken Rosewall Arena in Sydney last month.
The Swifts are arguably the most settled combination in the league, with their only changes over the off-season the return of Sam Wallace from injury and the addition of young gun Lili Gorman-Brown who was a temporary replacement player last year and, filling in seamlessly for Allie Smith.
West Coast Fever and Adelaide Thunderbirds were among the pleasant surprises at the Team Girls Cup, both sides showing they can’t be counted out despite significant change over the off-season.
The Thunderbirds, who had never previously made the Super Netball finals, pushed straight through the post-season to win their first premiership last year but the loss of goalers Eleanor Cardwell and Tippah Dwan in the contracting period meant many struck them from their list of contenders.
They showed in Sydney though the enormous confidence they gained from winning the title, and canny recruiting that handed them veteran former internationals Romelda Aiken-George and Laura Scherian, means that they can’t be counted out.
Similarly, the Fever will be there again after winning the title in 2022 and going within a goal of the decider last year.
While they lost five players in a tumultuous off-season, their recruitment has been incredibly strong.
In comes England Roses captain Fran Williams along with ex Sunshine Coast Lightning defender Kadie-Ann Dehaney to give the club a strong and versatile defensive end after the loss of Bruce.
Any team with Jhaniele Fowler as a scoring spearhead can never be counted out and the addition of her Sunshine Girls teammate Shanice Beckford was a masterstroke, with the goal attack making gains by the day in the pre-season.
Veteran middie and former Diamond Kelsey Brown has also come into the Fever mix and captain Jess Anstiss believes they can’t be counted out.
“I think in the off-season period during the signings, people were starting to doubt us and say, ‘there’s lots of changes, they won’t be so good this year’,” Anstiss said.
“But people are soon starting to realise after some pre-season matches that we’ve actually recruited quite well and we’re coming together really well which is nice.”
The Queensland Firebirds were the surprise packets of the pre-season tournament and are determined to push for a return to the finals for the first time since 2018 after a lacklustre season in Bec Bulley’s first year in charge.
There was plenty of speculation about an unhappy side north of the border but some frank conversations, clear expectations and goal setting for 2024, means the Firebirds squad is united and all pulling in the same direction.
While captain Kim Ravaillion’s return date after back surgery remains unclear, the Firebirds have shown enough to suggest that they’ll surprise plenty, although their efforts at the Team Girls Cup mean they won’t be flying under the radar, with everyone aware of the weapons they possess.
The return of Dwan following a premiership-winning stint in Adelaide to a shooting circle that already includes prolific Donnell Wallam, and the emergence of young tall Izzy Shearer in defence, has plenty excited about what the Birdies will offer this year.
The Giants are another side that look set to bounce back to their best after some strong recruitment, and critically, some rest for captain Jo Harten.
Harten’s absence from much of last year with a knee injury that caused her chronic pain hurt the Giants but the game time it handed Matisse Letherbarrow could pay off in spades.
Harten returns as refreshed as she’s been in years after a proper rest, having retired from international duty while Sophie Dwyer has taken her game to a new level given the confidence she’s added through her Diamonds experiences.
The addition of former internationals Sam Winders and Chelsea Pitman, current Sunshine Girl Jodi-Ann Ward and Silver Fern Gina Crampton have made for an incredibly competitive training atmosphere at the Giants, something that’s sure to be reflected on the court this season.
So where does the new team Melbourne Mavericks fit in?
They failed to win it a game at the Team Girls Cup, although over their four outings – a draw and three losses – came at a net deficit of just eight goals.
They will definitely be competitive but the loss of Sasha Glasgow to a badly broken leg and Lauren Moore to an ACL injury, has been a crushing blow for a club and that’s already had to scramble to assemble a list under the most trying of circumstances given the pay war and contracting saga following the Collingwood collapse and bidding process for a new club which left new coach Tracy Neville just months to assemble a competitive team.
With Eleanor Cardwell and Amy Parmenter there though, they have strong pillars around which to build a winning team and they’ll get better and better as the year goes on.
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