NETBALL - Nervous wait as Latu tries to switch camps

Despite assurances from Northern Mystics management, it's unlikely to be a happy weekend for Northern Mystics shooter Catherine Latu, as her international fate hangs in the balance.
The 22-year-old was born and brought up in Kawakawa but her nationality will be one of the subjects up for discussion this weekend - at a meeting of the International Netball Federation in London.
Mystics chief executive Mark Cameron said Netball NZ and the Mystics had asked the organisation to change her eligibility so she can be considered to play for the Silver Ferns.
Because of her Samoan heritage, Latu was approached to play for the Pacific Island nation in the under-21 World Junior Championships in Miami in 2005. She played for Samoa in the 2006 Commonwealth Games but last year's World Championships in Auckland was meant to be her last game before switching her allegiance back to the Silver Ferns.
Latu said the issue being decided this weekend was about her eligibility to play for New Zealand and her eligibility to play for the Mystics in the 2009 series was a side issue.
Cameron agreed, saying the ANZ Championship franchise was quietly confident about Latu's eligibility. "One way or the other Catherine Latu will be playing for us this year," he said, in response to media speculation the Mystics may be without a shooter for their first match of the series in three weeks time.
The Mystics will be joined by English shooter Pam Cookey - their "overseas player" - for the second game of the season after her northern hemisphere season is completed.
Latu said she had been fighting to change her eligibility for a year and the process was now out of her hands.
Cameron said the franchise had been working steadily for four or five months to settle their line-up ahead of the competition.
Another eligibility concern - this time of Former Silver Fern Vilimaina Davu - was eased last month when Davu was granted New Zealand citizenship.
"Now we've ticked that box, the next box to tick is with Catherine Latu and that's what we've resolved to do," he said.