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{{data.paywallPrompt.callToAction}}This was published 7 years ago
Lightning star Geva Mentor happy to have taught the young Vixens a few tricks
If Geva Mentor did not teach the young Vixens defenders everything she knows, then Melbourne's beloved former premiership player happily shared all that she could. There is, therefore, nothing bittersweet for Mentor in seeing the results of of her, well, mentoring, even if the beneficiaries play for the only team above hers on the Super Netball ladder.
"I'm just so happy and thrilled for - particularly - their defensive end, because I feel like I've been working on them and sharing my knowledge, and it's almost a bit of a proud moment for me to see the likes of Emily Mannix and Jo Weston doing well," says the inaugural Sunshine Coast Lightning captain, who moved north in 2017 after six years with the Vixens.
Lightning captain Geva Mentor is happy to help the younger generation of players. Jonathan Demos
"But particularly Mannix, because I feel I took her under my wing and she was a little bit of my progeny coming up through. So I'm excited for her that she's getting the reward on court, and she's a great girl off the court as well. I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, and my decision to come up to the Sunny Coast has not only helped me but it's given those Vixens girls the chance to show what they've got now, and not wait on the sidelines or be in the shadow."
Mentor, indeed, is enjoying both the Queensland weather and her role in establishing and leading one of the competition's three new franchises. The Melbourne Storm-owned Lightning is Super Netball's only regional team, and while home is a much more "intimate" - ie. smaller - stadium than the Vixens boast, it was there that in round two the Victorian visitors suffered their only loss of the season. Top spot on the ladder, four weeks from the finals, is the prize for Saturday night's return appointment at Margaret Court Arena.
For Mentor, that means coming home, in one sense, for her schoolteacher husband Lachie Crawford has remained in Melbourne for the time being while his 32-year-old wife pursues a two-year contract that the Vixens - with an eye to the future and a bench bursting with ripening young defensive talent - did not match.
"A few things came together in making my final decision - a few things played out in terms of where the Vixens were looking to go in the future, and that's fair enough, and Simone and I had some great conversations throughout the off-season of where she was looking to go with her club, and where I'm looking to go with my netball," she says. "And likewise I also was able to have a great conversation with Noeline [Taurua, Lightning coach] and that probably just cemented my decision."
A one-year deal with the Vixens that would help the transition to the new generation was understandably trumped by the Lightning's guarantee of two, especially with the England captain eyeing a fourth Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast next April. Mentoring is one thing, but Mentor had grander plans, and although there were tears when the popular veteran told Vixens coach Simone McKinnis that she was departing, there was also much affection and acceptance on both sides.
"The Vixens had every reason to make the sort of decisions they did," Mentor said. "They wanted to play a lot more girls … but I'm definitely not ready to sit on the sidelines completely at the moment, I still want to be able to contribute to the team as much as I can. There will come a time when that will be maybe my role within a team, but I just felt that I wasn't ready for that yet."
Plan B is working out rather well, it must be said. The Lightning, built around a formidable Caitlin Bassett-Laura Langman-Mentor spine, share the Vixens' 7-1-1 record. Meanwhile, energised by her new northern environment, and reaping the benefits of a full pre-season uninterrupted by ailing knees, Mentor's brilliant clock-rewinding form at goal keeper has her leading the league for deflections (60) and second for intercepts (29).
Saturday's opponent will be the dynamic Malawian Mwai Kumwenda, part of the league's highest-scoring shooting circle - although, as a counterpoint, the Mentor-led defence is its most frugal. Less than one per cent separates the teams, with the Giants lurking half-a-game behind, and the fourth-placed Magpies also showing signs that things are starting to come together at last.
Mentor says she is more settled now, and less worried that she will accidentally mistake friends and former teammates Liz Watson and Tegan Philip for current ones than she was in the 58-52 result eight rounds ago. As for the athletic Kumwenda, the 100-plus Test stalwart says she thrives on the challenge of curbing the unorthodox, just as she is relieved to no longer have to contend with the towering, more conventional, Bassett.
The Vixens, Mentor insists, are the benchmark, and while professing to be unsure of the crowd reception, admits it will feel "weird" to be opposing her old team in Melbourne. There is some relief in the fact that the match is scheduled for MCA rather than the more familiar Hisense Arena, scene of the 2014 grand final triumph.
So, having taught the current young pups most of her many tricks, does Mentor have any regrets about potentially giving the game away? "Not at all," she laughs. "Hopefully one of these days I'll be able to sit back and watch, but for now I'd like to think that I've still maybe got a few up my sleeve. And, if not, it's just 'bring it on for a great game'."