Together with national selectors Annie Sargeant and Michelle Wilkins, coach Stacey Marinkovich has selected an Australian team that best suits her vision for the 2023 Netball World Cup. Ball speed and variety in attack, pressure in defence, consistency and existing combinations were all crucial factors in their decision making process.
Marinkovich said the Diamonds’ greatest strength is their unity. “We have a real understanding of what we are trying to achieve together, and the way we want to do it together.
“Results will come down to team performance. Every country has its superstars, including us, but it’s the way in which a team can connect across four full quarters.
That’s something our group hasn’t done yet, and that’s exciting. There’s still gaps we are chasing. The wins we’ve taken so far have been off small moments, and while we’ve certainly taken them, we need to be more consistent and particularly at the start of the game.
THE TEAM
Shooters
Kiera Austin
Sophie Garbin
Cara Koenen
Steph Wood (VC)
Reserve: Donnell Wallam
Midcourt
Ash Brazill
Paige Hadley
Jamie-Lee Price
Liz Watson (C)
Reserve: Kate Moloney
Defenders
Sunday Aryang
Courtney Bruce
Sarah Klau
Jo Weston
Reserve: Ruby Bakewell-Doran
—
SELECTION INSIGHTS WITH STACEY MARINKOVICH
Shooters
Kiera Austin
Kiera is a dynamic goal attack who can also apply pressure defensively through court for us. She’s a threat to post at mid-range and can connect with a variety of shooters.
Sophie Garbin
Sophie has great variation in how she can move the ball, and variety within the goal circle. That includes strength and positioning on the hold, the ability to keep the ball moving and to options to get the ball down court quickly. Her style can match up against any of our opposition.
Cara Koenen
She has shown her ability to stand up and get great volume under intense pressure and a variety of opposition, and is great on both the hold and the move. She gives us a really dynamic circle.
Steph Wood (VC)
Steph has great leadership and is a playmaker out on court. She is a threat to post but brings out the strengths of all our shooters.
Reserve: Donnell Wallam
In just her second elite season in Australia, Donnell has grown immensely both on the court and in her high performance behaviours. It wasn’t smooth sailing for the Firebirds earlier this year, so for her to show such leadership this season, shows the quality of person she is.
In Gretel Bueta’s absence, and with Donnell Wallam as reserve, you don’t have a post shooter that is putting up a high volume. How do you work around that?
One thing we did notice is that Sophie is able to get a volume of shot equal to what Gretel contributed. We’ve seen it against New Zealand and England, so we have confidence that our feeders can find her under the post. We aren’t trying to replicate Gretel because she is unique, but you can see some likeness in how Cara is now moving in the circle, while Sophie has strength and presence.
So the balance gives us the opportunity to change things up. It’s not like for like, it’s something different.
Your thoughts on choosing a goal shooter rather than goal attack for your reserve.
We’ve looked at how we wanted to play and also our opposition. If we lost a goal attack, Cara and perhaps Sophie can cover that position if needed, but it’s harder if we had a reserve goal attack who needed to cover shooter. Having the extra tall means we could mix up our combinations really well.
Sophie Garbin takes the ball against strong contest from South Africa’s Zanele Vimbela in the 2022 Quad Series. Image: Ben Lumley
Midcourt
Ash Brazill
Ash is our specialist wing defence while she’s also just shown us what a great job she can do in the centre if needed. Braz is both a ball winner and a tagger, and to maximise the opportunities for our back defenders we’ve got to be able to show them where our players are and she does that well.
Paige Hadley
Paige is our only World Cup gold medallist. She brings a lot of insights to the game, and is having a tremendous season. She was injured during the Commonwealth Games, so we’ve yet to see the best of her within the current Diamonds’ environment. But her existing combinations and leadership compliments the group, and she’s a great feeder of the ball.
Jamie-Lee Price
J is a point of difference for us this year. She’s a strong bodied player, who has really adapted her game in our environment to play a more hard running style, making moves towards the circle as opposed to propping. That growth has shown that she can bring something else to our game – not just a strength and power athlete but someone who can use that with ball speed.
Liz Watson (C)
She’s a tremendous leader who keeps control of the attack end, is a high volume feeder, has been there before and we know that she’ll continue to lead and construct the attack end the way we want to play.
Reserve: Kate Moloney
Kate does provide great versatility. As well as covering wing defence and centre, she can play wing attack. She’s done that in our training environment, and we’ve explored it.
As a stalwart in the centre at the Commonwealth Games, I imagine this was tough for Kate.
She is an absolute professional in the way she took the call. There is no doubt it’s one of the hardest phone calls I’ve ever made. Decisions like this aren’t about a poor performance or a lack of skill. It’s the dynamic that we are looking at and needing at a point in time. Whilst it’s incredibly hard, we have to keep to our vision of what we need to try and win this World Cup, and keep pursuing that.
Being defence heavy, was there any leaning towards bringing in a reserve who could give more wing attack cover?
We think the selection of Kate suits our combinations best. Kiera and even Steph can slip across and provide wing attack cover. However, we need to be able to ramp up and apply as much pressure and balance as we can to attack the game.
Latty Wilson has done a great job of shutting down the Australian wing attacks during the domestic season. How can you adjust to that?
To beat any of the international defence line ups we will need our attacking line up to be fully connected. You need multiple options to the ball. If you are one dimensional, the skill and flair that comes particularly from the Jamaicans who read the play so beautifully, can get you into strife.
Our wing attacks have to be able to step up and use sharp angles against her, and we need to stretch and move their whole defence unit so that we have control of the ball and it’s less easily readable.
The experience of our midcourt could be a real point of difference. What will be your focus in such a short space of time?
It’s continuing to build what we’ve been working on. We want to play a direct game, to keep the ball speed up, something that the Australian team is well known for, and to understand our core balance. To get our vision and skill sets right.
The intent of training will be putting ourselves into difficult situations that we have to work ourselves out of – to test and try and see where our gaps are so we can rectify that.
While she plays a different game within the Diamonds’ set up, Jamie-Lee Price’s strength is always an asset. Image May Bailey I Clusterpix
Defenders
Sunday Aryang
Sunday has really elusive footwork and is a mix in terms of being able to work the one on one, but who also has vision into the circle. She sights ball well, so can confuse the space and build into combinations.
Courtney Bruce
Courtney is a ball winner, with the strength within the circle, and she’s diverse in that she can play out at goal defence and in a number of combinations.
Sarah Klau
Sarah has great footwork and has also shown diversity across two positions, so I’m looking at how we can utilise that within our environment. Having height and the ability to confuse space, she manipulates the goal shooter’s body in a different way to Courtney
Jo Weston
She is a work horse out the front. She knows how to wear a player, is able to make sure that she provides vision and support to a goal keeper but can also handle her direct opponent well.
Reserve: Ruby Bakewell-Doran
Part of Ruby’s selection came down to her familiarity with the environment, while she does bring something a little different to the defenders we already have. She will fly through for the ball and take calculated risks.
Thoughts on running a tall back combination of Bruce and Klau.
We are going to come up against some incredible height and very dominant shooters under the post. Anything we can do to confuse space and put pressure on the feed from the outside will give us a chance. Our oppositions have great quality in attack.
Some of the Australian defenders have been heavily penalised domestically this year. How can you tidy that up?
It’s interesting. We will have to adapt to the different umpires, but it’s also the partnerships and their ability to know they have their opponent covered with footwork. That whole combination concept (in the back end), knowing where they can push themselves out to and know how much coverage they’ve got from someone else will give them the confidence to stay off the body.
We are going to have to be able to get up in the air, and you just can’t do that when you are on someone’s shoulder or hip.
Sunday was in hot competition with a couple of other goal defences. What was your decisive factor?
Tilly Garrett has really stepped up this season, and we’ve seen her ability to wear her player and play that traditional Australian one on one, but because she’s new to the squad we haven’t seen that in combination yet, and we had to select the squad before we could have a camp. We are looking forward to exploring that. With Ruby, she’s a ball getter who works off the body, but is still learning to work within combinations and understanding our opposition.
Sunday Aryang has experienced a range of opponents, and has built into the 2023 season. Image: May Bailey | Netball Scoop
—
THE BIG QUESTIONS
What sort of attributes do your reserves need? It must be the hardest role in the team.
It is the most selfless position you can have, putting aside your own personal ambition for the sake of others. They need a strong connection with the role they are playing, and I think our reserves will work extremely hard to challenge our 12 and to be prepared to step into that role in needed. Their mentality around the squad, the Diamonds, the Sisters-In-Arms, they will epitomise that and you have to balance those attributes. It’s not enough just to be a skilful player, you have to be a great team player.
However, it is tough, and they need to be well supported.
What support will you give the reserves?
We will have role clarity for those positions, so they understand what their schedule is, as they have to keep training. They will do everything the group does, and when we are playing games they will still need to be ticking things over so that any moment they could step in and play at the highest of intensity opposition.
We will work through it with them individually so they are comfortable and feel like they belong.
We’ve also committed to the reserve players that they will walk away from this experience being a better player and person because of it. So we will put performance plans in place for them so they can continue to take that into further international opportunities.
If you need to substitute a player is it between matches, or can it actually in a match, such as a final?
I’m pretty sure that substitutions can only be made between matches, because an independent doctor has to make the ruling. If something did happen it has to go through a process to make sure it’s a tournament ending issue, whether it’s illness, injury or a personal emergency.
You don’t go into full Diamonds’ camp until the 10th of July, but will you have any mini-camps or hubs before then?
As players come out of the season and finals we will connect with them. Nic Richardson (assistant coach) is in Melbourne so she will take responsibility for those players, we have a connection with the Sydney players, some of whom will come up to Queensland to train with the group that’s here.
We can really target individual work for those whose domestic season has ended, while we know the players in finals will be game hardened under immense pressure and expectation, which we will need for the World Cup.
That said, the players will need a short mental and physical refresh for a tough tournament.
The Diamonds haven’t been together early this year. How much did that influence your selection?
A big key was player’s exposure to the international scene, understanding concepts and how quickly they can change. That’s critical because we have such a short amount of preparation time.”
What will be your biggest challenge?
We are going to have games where there are differences in standards and then we will hit games with massive implications about whether we go to a medal match or not. While the back end of the week is really important, managing ourselves through that early period to be ready and prepared is crucial.
The stand off between NA and ANPA over player announcements last week must have been really difficult for you.
My focus has been making sure the environment is ready and raring to go, so that when the girls do come in and we are in our bubble, we’re fully focused and thriving.
While we had to work through some difficult times during the week, nothing took away from the emotion and degree of appreciation when the players finally received their phone calls. That really reaffirmed to me what being a Diamond means.
It’s a privilege to have those phone calls which are so personal, and that’s the special connection and relationship you get to have with the players. The excitement when they are in, and that support and empathy when things don’t fall to what they so desire. It can be a hard place, but it’s very special and I’ll never take it for granted.
So how are selection decisions communicated?
Players sit in a phone call with myself and Stacey West (Diamonds high performance manager). Straight after the call I speak to their head coach and let them know, while Stacey West calls their well being manager and their high performance manager. Those three people know their player exceptionally well, and what they might need in that moment. So the whole support network that is around a person in SSN season continues to be that support through the notifications.
For the players who have received disappointing news, how do you support their wellbeing?
We work closely with the clubs in a dynamic model. The wellbeing managers in clubland have 24 hour access to their players and know them very well, so we want to maintain those relationships rather than have them be dropped when they come into the Diamonds. The players get support with that person even while we are on tour, and our chief medical officer oversees that set up. It’s well communicated, and the players are very comfortable with it.
With Collingwood folding, this has also been a difficult time for your assistant Nic Richardson.
Nic is an absolute trooper. What she’s managed across this season shows the calibre of both the coach and the person that she is. We’re incredibly lucky to have her as she epitomises what a Diamond is, as a former player and what she’s taken through to her coaching. It’s been intense for her, with a huge amount of emotion, but she keeps it real. We have her back, she will have time to reenergise, and she becomes a competitive beast whenever she gets into the Diamonds’ environment.
Can the Diamonds add the Netball World Cup to their trophy cabinet? Image: May Bailey | Netball Scoop
