Southeast Melbourne coach Tracey Neville talks player recruitment, how franchise can succeed

Super Netball’s newest franchise is already facing setbacks in building a list but new coach Tracey Neville won’t let it stop her. She sat down with Emma Greenwood.

When Tracey Neville starts calling people on Monday as Super Netball’s eighth team holds its first player recruitment discussions, few things will be as important as connection.

Former England Roses coach Neville, who was announced as the eighth franchise’s new coach last week, wants good people as well as good players.

She needs a few pillars – players she calls the cogs – that will form the foundation of the southeast Melbourne club’s inaugural team.

But given she has just months to start a team from scratch, connection is a must.

As the old saying goes, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

It’s practically a metaphor for netball. Unlike the football codes, or basketball, where a star player can dominate in attack and defence and carry a team, netball relies on each member doing their particular job.

A defender can’t push forward and score, a shooter can’t make a goal-saving defensive play. They must rely on their teammates to do their job.

Neville will take over the eighth franchise in Super Netball. pic Mark Evans

It’s why finding players who already have that connection will be a must for a franchise desperate to ensure it at least at the start line with the other seven clubs at the opening centre pass next season and not already chasing from behind.

“One of the things for me is (players having) that relationship and playing together,” Neville said in an exclusive interview with Code Sports at the Netball World Cup in South Africa.

“The team I’m going to recruit, one of the strategies around that is, have they got club to club link, have they got club to international link, have they got coach to international link?

“That is really important so you can pull them all together, they’ve played in a way that we can gravitate on quickly and we can really make that shine.

“And that’s what’s really important in this recruitment phase.”

ENGLISH PLAYERS NOT A PRIORITY

Neville knows as an English coach, plenty will expect her to cherry pick players from either the Roses squad or the English Superleague.

Delays in naming the franchise to replace Collingwood and issues with finalising Super Netball’s Collective Player Agreement, which will further delay the actual signing window from opening, have already made that near impossible, with England’s Superleague clubs already contracting their top 10 players.

But it’s also not what Neville is aiming to do.

While speculation continues to swirl about the future of Eleanor Cardwell, a longtime Neville devotee who worked with the coach at Manchester Thunder, the Roses and Adelaide Thunderbirds last season in the club’s premiership-winning campaign, Neville has no intention of stacking the new Melbourne side with Poms.

“I’m really adamant that Victorian and Australian-based players are really the longevity of the franchise,” Neville said.

“When you’re going out to something new, why would you do the same thing you’ve been doing for a long time?

“The reason to come to Australia was to coach the world’s best players, to coach in a different style, to be challenged in different ways.

“So why would I put people in there that I’ve just been coaching for many years?

“My thing is about adaptability and I want to show that I can actually work with a variety of players in a different environment.”

Thunderbirds star Eleanor Cardwell has been heavily linked to joining Neville in Melbourne. (Photo by Kelly Defina/Getty Images)

BUILDING A PATHWAY

Neville also wants to foster a close relationship with Netball Victoria, knowing how important it will be to build a pathway for local players.

It’s something she did incredibly successfully at Manchester, where players like Cardwell, Helen Housby, Jade Clarke and Nat Metcalf – all part of the Roses squad at this World Cup – went on to play for England.

“I think the easiest thing to say is because she’s an English coach, she’s going to look at English players,” Neville said.

“But most of the English players have signed Superleague contracts, so actually my focus has to be Australian and Victorian-based players.

“A team of internationals is not going to add fan engagement in Victoria.

“I’ve worked in that area, I’ve coached in that area with the national team and club teams that we’ve taken there as well, and they’re very, very true Victorians, and they’re very passionate about their own players and that is something that I have to take on board and learn from.

“We’re not only trying to recruit a team, we’re trying to recruit fans.

“Because which player, which coach wants to play in front of a stadium full of nothing?”

Having played in Australia previously with the Thunderbirds and being part of their coaching line-up last season, Neville has seen first-hand some of issues that beset Collingwood and led to their downfall.

“From my point of view, that means then that you can’t fly by the seat of your pants by going for something that’s unrealistic,” she said.

“There’s a lot of loyalty based around (recruiting) players and to shift their home life is really difficult to do and a massive decision and they’ve got to be trusting what’s happening.

“And at the moment, I don’t think that trust has been created by other franchises that have been in that position.

“That’s why I wanted to be a stable coach, I wanted a bit of a longer term contract to say, well actually, I am here for the long run and I wanted to try and create stability around the players, the franchise but also the fans as well.”

Neville says a relationship with Netball Victoria will be crucial to the new franchise’s success. (AAP Image/Paul Miller)

HERE FOR THE LONG HAUL

The new franchise, to be operated by Craig Hutchison’s Sports Entertainment Network, has contracted Neville for two years, with talks to resume between the parties after that for a third season which would take the coach to the end of the current broadcast cycle, when Super Netball is likely to expand.

Neville had asked for a three-year term, believing it is vital to show players and fans she is not going to cut and run from the new set-up.

“I want to really buy into coaching in Australia. I want to really buy into taking this franchise and I know that one year is just not long enough,” she said.

“We’ve come to an agreement that that was probably the best for both parties to take on that two-year contract with the option that potentially we can have discussions about me continuing for that third year.

“From my point of view, it was about stability around the players.

“We’re now going into a new contracting period and players want to know that the team or the coach that they’re buying into is something that the organisation is also buying into and that they’re going to try and create stability around their futures and their career going forward.

“That was the major thing from Sports Entertainment Network and myself that this was about the stability of the players and the staff.

“There’s a lack of trust in new franchises forming, particularly around this Victorian area and we wanted to try and give a lot of confidence trust and create stability around this next crop of players.”

Certainly SEN believes it has the right woman in Neville.

Having put her through an extensive interview process, SEN’s chief executive of teams, Richard Simkiss said Neville had “presented as a wonderful leader with an acute understanding and sense of this unique opportunity”.

“That is, to build and create a winning culture from scratch. To attract and galvanise a brand new playing group, to create a sense of something new and something different and to engage a whole new fan base connecting with Melbourne’s southeast corridor and beyond,” Simkiss said.

“We are delighted to have Tracy join us as our inaugural head coach.”

SEN boss Craig Hutchison. (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)

RACE TO SET UP

In any normal situation, an expansion club would have plenty of time to get their ducks in a row.

For the southeast Melbourne team, preparations for their inaugural season will be massively condensed.

But Neville is confident things will get done.

“This is not just about recruiting 10 players, we’re literally recruiting a whole staff group, a (training) venue, a playing venue,” she said.

“But I’ve got total confidence in the franchise that I’m working for because it’s not something that they haven’t done before – they’ve gone into established and newly established teams and set them up to where now, they’re excelling.”

Certainly, Neville expects some “mud on my face” as things go against her.

But she believes her passion and three key pillars will see her through.

“I really want to do well in this job; I want this franchise to be successful; and I feel that I’m a coach that can add value to an environment as well.

“If I always remember those three things, we’ll be in good stead to have a good season.”

The Magpies left the competition after the 2023 season. (Photo by Steve Bell/Getty Images)

That is likely to involve having at least some of the former Collingwood players in the new club’s colours.

But even that hasn’t been made easy.

“The really upsetting thing about this process is that we (haven’t until Monday) been allowed to approach anyone’s players and (all the other clubs) were allowed to approach Collingwood players,” Neville said.

“You would have thought that they would have been assigned to the eighth team with the thought that they could have moved if they weren’t comfortable.

“Again, we’ve been put on the back foot.

“I’m not telling a sob story here because at the end of the day, those players will make a decision based on what’s best for their netball and I’m hoping some of those players make a decision based on being with our franchise and being with me as a head coach.”

Originally published as Southeast Melbourne coach Tracey Neville talks player recruitment, how franchise can succeed