NETBALL - Latu to give final best shot

Kawakawa netballer Catherine Latu feels like she's been waiting for five years for tonight's National Bank Cup final.
The Northern Force goalshoot thinks the team have slowly been working toward a national title shot and is confident they will be ready when they meet the Southern Sting tonight at the North Shore Events Centre.
"The team's playing the way we've always wanted to play, it's a shame we've left it until the very last competition to make a final but it's better late than never," she said.
Although the Sting have never missed one of the previous nine finals - they've won six of them - Latu said the Force would be concentrating on recent form when they went into camp last night for a final team-bonding session.
"We've come up against them twice now (this season) and we've won both times but unfortunately that's got nothing much to do with what will happen in the final," she said. "They're known for coming out on top when it really matters so we're going to have to fight that much harder to win."
The 20-year-old left Kawakawa five years ago to take up a netball scholarship at Massey High School and admits she found it tough going at first.
"I moved away from home when I had just turned 15 and that was a bit hard. Leaving a big family to come down to Auckland to live by myself was tough, but I've dealt with it now," she said.
Leaving her nine siblings and parents David and Mary-Anne in sleepy Kawakawa for the bright lights of Auckland presented several challenges to the talented netballer but Latu said the opportunity to finish her career with the Force on a high note would make them all seem worthwhile. The final National Bank Cup title is a good incentive before the competition makes way for next year's inaugural transtasman club series.
"In all honesty, everybody remembers the team that won it last, so hopefully that'll be us," she laughed.
Latu is looking forward to next year's semi-professional Australasian series, saying that player payments will take some of the financial burden off the country's elite.
"It's about time it happened, we won't be anywhere close to rugby but we're on our way now."
The goalshoot has had to put her social sciences degree at AUT on hold this year because of her involvement with the world championships in November and, instead, is working for one of the team's sponsors, Korbond Industries.
She first was approached to play for Samoa before an under-21 trip to Miami and has enjoyed her international experience ever since.
"I just wanted to go to Miami and it just rolled over from there and I went to the Commonwealth Games after that ... I think it's every girls' dream to play for the Silver Ferns though but I'm committed to Samoa for now," she said.
"This way I get to play in the World Cup whereas, if I wasn't playing for Samoa, I might be stuck in the New Zealand A team or something."7
Latu will reconsider her international career after this year's world championships in Auckland with a two-year stand-down from international competition a possible prelude to switching to the Silver Ferns.
"I don't think I'm quite ready for the Silver Ferns yet but a two-year stand down might work out well, I mean Irene Van Dyk isn't going anywhere for a little while, so waiting might be the best option."
Latu is beginning to show the promise that North Harbour NPC coach and longtime friend and mentor Melissa Walker saw in her at an early age.
``I've seen her develop from a snotty-nosed know-it-all, living at our house to what she is today and I couldn't be prouder of her and I think the world is going to be her oyster especially with the development of the transtasman game,' Walker said.