A new Magpie, happy to be home
When netball star Caitlin Thwaites is asked to nominate her worst injury during an eventful 14-year career, the answer has nothing to do with her body but everything about her mind.
When netball star Caitlin Thwaites is asked to nominate her worst injury during an eventful 14-year career, the answer has nothing to do with her body but everything about her mind.
Helen Housby will miss a second straight week for the Swifts who play West Coast on Friday night.
The Canberra Giants are hoping a sell-out crowd is on hand when they try to secure a maiden ANL finals berth.
How coaches use their bench can be decisive in Super Netball.
Having never played a full game in netball's big league until this season, Emily Mannix's first two were against Diamonds' duo Caitlin Thwaites and Caitlin Bassett and her third against the NSW Swifts' Trinidadian revelation Sam Crawford. This Saturday it will be the colossus Romelda Aiken, who is equipped with the twin advantages of height and experience. Welcome.
There's 'enormous room for improvement' in Super Netball ladder leaders.
It was a Magpies netball performance that was more than the sum of its decorated individual parts.
There was no revenge for the NSW Swifts in the grand final rematch as the Queensland Firebirds eased to a 62-53 win in Brisbane.
The Sunshine Coast Lightning have welcomed back two stars for Saturday's clash with the unbeaten Giants.
Magpies Netball coach Kristy-Keppich Birrell says "surprise" would not be the word she would use to describe her new team's 1-2 standing after three rounds, because it was always accepted within the Holden Centre's incredibly well-resourced walls (our words) that a team built from scratch and with a minimal collective pre-season preparation would need some getting-to-know-you time, however elite its separate components.
Abbey McCulloch has declared she wants to be a Swift for life ahead of Friday night's tantalising grand final replay against the Queensland Firebirds.
Capitalising on home games against two of the competition's more beatable opponents is vital for Victoria's Super Netball teams this weekend.
Prolific goal-shooters at the end of awesome attacking lines seemed to spell doom for some Super Netball defences. But it hasn't turned out that way.
After a double-bill that earned the Magpies and Vixens just one point between them, next weekend's follow-up will come against Super Netball's two weakest teams and a loss for either Victorian team would be dire.
The Giants remain unbeaten. Collingwood remain unable to win a game on their home court. The Magpies, raging flag favourites in the pre-season, now have a solitary win from their opening three rounds after a 59-51 loss at Hisense Arena.
Paige Hadley says Trinidadian import Sam Wallace has taken the Super Netball competition by storm.
In the melting pot that is Collingwood's multi-team sporting HQ is a netballer who has already dabbled in football and hopes to switch full-time to AFLW when her original career is done. When Ash Brazill sees the Pies' women's team, they ask her to come and have a kick. Which she does. When netball staffers notice, they good-naturedly warn the pesky football types to stay away.
Four players in this weekend's Magpies-Giants clash on Saturday represented the Swifts in last year's grand final.
Having opened with mixed results against two formidable new rivals, the Melbourne Vixens renew an old acquaintance in round three. Yet the fact that the recast NSW Swifts may not be such a familiar foe after all may be a good thing, for no team has tormented the Vixens so often, over so long.
When God handed out the first set of netball bibs sometime in the first century AD, she decreed that the G in four of the seven positions stood for "goal". As in Goal shooter. Goal attack. Goal defence. Goal keeper. In modern netball the G might as well stand for other things. Glamour shooter. Glitz attack. Genius defence. Glory keeper. There is no doubt the circle is where is it at on the netball court, and it is goal shooting and goal defending that have won and lost titles in recent times.
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