2025 ANZ PREMIERSHIP

it won’t happen but I’d like to see Stars/Tbirds do a one year swap between Maia and Lucy Austin – will give Lucy the constant court time to improve and Maia is a GS/GA switch for the Tbirds, I think Austin would still be eligible as 11th player for them, so once ANZ is done she can slot back in over there if required.

I think Wallam may struggle wherever she goes as fitness is a big thing in the ANZ teams (my parents had dinner a little while ago while on holiday and at the table next to them were the parents of someone associated with Fbirds, they got talking about netball and they said she had no interest in doing fitness, and overall had a pretty shitty attitude)

NYR – it remains an if/when. Taurua alluded to it not long ago. It’s up to NNZ and out of her hands. Its been part of Tauruas review/contract discussions.

• This reply was modified 8 months, 2 weeks ago by Maryann.

I preface this with the fact that I have no idea about Wallam’s attitude to fitness.

I do find the above comment suggesting that Wallam would struggle with ANZ fitness standards strange. The SSN is a very demanding league and Wallam is in the Diamonds programme. She has been the target of an enormous amount of racism and misinformation in Australia and obviously there has been a lot of division at the Firebirds too. I would treat the comments about her fitness “from someone associated with the Fbirds” with a fair bit of caution.

Just saying what I was told, just like others do on here, nothing at all to do with racism, and I never said a word about that, not sure how you correlate someone not being interested in doing fitness work as racism – that’s how all the issues start by saying stuff like that…it comes down to putting the work in like everyone else does,and not using that as an excuse. Which wouldn’t fly with any other teams anywhere

There’s a reason (or reasons) fbirds didn’t offer to keep her on, and why other Aussie teams don’t really appear interested….

thanks Sue.

I think at the end of the day natural talent – and there’s no denying Wallam has it in spades, can only take you so far, and then you need to put in additional work to improve on that. And it’s that work and the right attitude, alongside the natural talent that will make someone an incredible player

@Flb apologies, I didn’t mean to imply you were saying I was making racist comments, I just don’t know why that always has to be brought into it – by no means just on here (which is probably the least of most places) but it always ends up being about her race on all platforms, and I know there has been some incredibly vile comments made and there is never any excuse for that full stop, so maybe her coming to play in NZ may help with that, as when it comes to sport at this level it is a total even playing field for everyone regardless of race, so like with Grace (but for different reasons) it could be a very telling season for them in a totally different environment.

and really it also just frustrates me as I, myself could’ve gone so much further in netball than just age group reps but a lack of motivation and drive (and a couple of really spirit breaking rep coaches) meant I never did the extra work, and natural talent only took me so far (I would’ve loved the opportunity to play with the supershot – that was always my fave shooting distance)