This weekend is a dangerous one for netball fans. With Suncorp Super Netball taking a well-earned Easter break, the temptation will be to stock up on chocolate and download old netball games to get you through four days of netball-free action. To that end I can highly recommend the 2007 World Cup final for a thrilling Australian win, or if you want to go super retro try the 1998 Commonwealth Games final for a great game and a bonus laugh at Sharelle McMahon's baby face before she was famous.
While you will see some great netball, you also run the risk of eating waaay too much chocolate. To that end, I can't help you.
![Jamie-Lee Price.](/web/20170429164037im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/j/j/z/e/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gvjkak.png/1492495827792.jpg)
What I can help with is an opportunity to have a sneak peek at Australia's netballing future. To that end, I can tell you that it is rosy.
In July this year Australia will send a team to Botswana to try to wrest the World Youth Cup title won by New Zealand in 2012. The first step towards the tournament came this week when Australian selectors named a 24-player, 21-and-under squad, from which the final team of 12 will be named in May.
Amazingly 13 of those named are already contracted to Super Netball teams. There is some pretty impressive ability in the list, with the Queensland Firebirds being particularly rich with young talent in Abigail Latu-Meafou, Kimberley Jenner and Jemma Mi Mi. Add to that the Magpies' Alice Teague-Neeld and West Coast Fever's Jess Anstiss and you get a sense that this will be a standout line-up.
One player, in particular, stands out, not only for the fact that she has played every minute of her team's eight games this season, but also for the fact that Australia nearly didn't have access to her talent. The Giants' Jamie-Lee Price is a standout name in the squad not only for her talent, but also for immense experience both in Australia and New Zealand.
She is a fierce competitor, with an aggressive style that has been her hallmark since her debut as a 17-year-old for Waikato's Magic franchise under current Giants coach Julie Fitzgerald. She is more than a physical presence though. With 10 intercepts and 12 possession gains to her name for the season, Price is a proven ball-winner – something that will prove invaluable in her quest to represent the country of her birth at the World Youth Cup.
That she is on this quest at all is a twist of fate that has coach Fitzgerald's fingerprints all over it. I first met Jamie-Lee when she was the 11-year-old flag-bearer for the Australian team at the opening ceremony of the 2007 World Cup. Back then she was the cute as a button daughter of Australian rugby league legend Steve Price. Their family had relocated to New Zealand when Price (senior!) signed with the Auckland-based Warriors franchise, and his daughter soon found her netball feet with her local club.
When I asked her who she was cheering for at the World Cup, she insisted that, despite being born in Australia, she was firmly in the camp of the Silver Ferns. When I feigned shock, she then went on to tell me that she was going to play for the Silver Ferns. "Cheeky kid," I thought, before turning my attention to the competition at hand.
I didn't think too much about that conversation until I saw Price pop up on the Magic roster a few years later. Then she seemed destined to fulfil her dreams after being selected for the New Zealand under-20 team and trialling for the Silver Ferns in 2016.
Then came the trans-Tasman league split, and Price decided to follow her much-loved coach across the ditch to be a foundation player with the Giants.This decision made her ineligible for selection in any Silver Ferns side, following the ruling by Netball New Zealand that anyone playing in Australia could not represent New Zealand. In making this ruling to try to protect its assets, Netball New Zealand has delivered a precocious talent to Australian netball. In July, we may see the start of that journey.