I’ve spoken before about how amazing it is the way people in the sporting world come together and support each other. With that, I was referring to players, coaches, support staff, fans, officials, volunteers and anyone else who has a connection to sport. But being in a sporting team is something different altogether. Whether that’s at the professional level or your Saturday afternoon G grade team, you create a special bond with your teammates that is different to anything else.
There’s been a lot of talk this year about the Swifts and the bond we have as a team. And being on the inside, I can assure you not one part of it is fake. We train together, hang out together and the majority of us even live together. And then we still want to hang out with each other again. While it’s often risky bringing together so many players from different states and overseas, for us, this has been an advantage. We have Paigey and Loz, our two locals, who round out the rest of us outsiders. But the fact that we are in each other’s pockets day in, day out, means we know each other like the back of our hand. After three years of being together, this has now begun to transfer onto the court. The tough conversations aren’t so tough anymore and you begin to know what your teammate is going to do before they do it. While there are a multitude of factors that contribute to a successful team (skill, fitness, strength, tactics, leadership to name a few), teamwork is number one. There’s a reason so many of us don’t play individual sports; we’d get lonely. Nothing compares to training and playing alongside your friends. And it helps when you really, really like each other.
It’s funny how fate can bring people from all walks of life together. Just the other week, a bunch of us were going to an event in Circular Quay. I was walking next to Helen (Housby in case you’re 1 of 2 people who don’t know who she is) and we were taking in the Opera House on our right and the Harbour Bridge straight ahead and thinking how lucky we are to be living in one of the best cities in the world. “How weird is it that we’ve both ended up here together,” I said to Helen. We’d crossed paths without knowing six years earlier in an Under 19s competition but now we had found ourselves in the same team in the same city which neither of us came from. Helen comes from a small country town in the north of England and she couldn’t believe it either. “I never thought I could make a career out of netball, let alone move countries for it,” she’d said. For that young, skinny-but-talented kid to now be one of the best players in the world (and the only one sponsored by Red Bull) is crazy.
I’d been to Trinidad & Tobago for a tour in 2012 when I was part of the 21&Under Australian team. It’s a beautiful country, but parts of it are very poor and very dangerous. To think that seven years later I’d be playing with Sam Wallace, the only player from Trinidad to play in Australia is pretty unbelievable. She has been through and sacrificed so much to be here that she is an inspiration to anyone who has the privilege of knowing her or watching her play. I now FaceTime Sam’s nephew, talk to her friends on the phone and one day hope to go back for her wedding (no pressure Theo). It’s a pretty unique situation when you have people from so many different places, cultures and upbringings coming together to achieve one goal. Everyone has had such different journeys to bring them to this team. There’s also Nat, our third international, whose move across the world came a little later than it did for others. We both captained our countries at the 2013 World Youth Cup and I’d always remembered her as the one I gravitated towards at events. She was bubbly, welcoming and always smiling. And she’s no different now. I feel so lucky to have these three different, caring, exciting and of course, talented friends in my life. And they’re pretty handy netballers too.
There’s always a lot of talk about what internationals do to Australian netball. Do they take opportunities that should be given to local talent? Are they impacting the future of Australian netball? In my opinion, they don’t, and they aren’t. If you want to be the best, you have to play with (and against) the best. And these international players are the best in the world, all contributing to improving the state of our game. You look at the NBA and the EPL and they are the premier sporting leagues in the world. If SSN wants to become the equivalent, we should be welcoming the best talent in the world with open arms. To have three African nations compete (and I mean really compete) at the World Cup for the first times shows just how much our sport is evolving. Netball changes lives, particularly of girls from these countries who get the opportunity to play internationally. You can’t look at Peace Proscovia from the Sunshine Coast Lightning and hear about her story and not think that we need to continue to welcome international talent. I hope we see more players from the African nations in SSN, and I think we will. Maybe we should instead focus on trying to introduce more teams to the competition to create more opportunities for Australian and international players.
You can’t ignore the bond that is formed from players all over the world when you look at teammates reunite after being apart for a month during the World Cup. There were tears when our players came together in Perth, and we all realised just how much we had missed each other. For the girls who had played against each other for their respective countries to go from enemies one day to best friends the next shows just how much sport, and netball in particular, brings people from all walks of life together. Plus, I love making friends from all over the world. It gives me free accommodation for my next holiday.
Until next time,
Maddy x