Dearns: I'll junk fear factor

Katrina Grant

FORMER Silver Fern Tanya Dearns will succeed the outgoing Robyn Broughton as head coach of the Central Pulse in the ANZ Championship and she has suggested the franchise is in for a change of attitude.

Dearns, a coach of high-performance netballers for more than 20 years and an acclaimed sports administrator, will begin at the start of August.

She was the assistant coach of the Waikato-Bay of Plenty Magic in 2013 and is general manager of the Bay Hawks National Basketball League franchise, picking up the 2014 Administrator of the Year award in her first year in the role.

Her netball-coaching resume includes work in Australia and the Northern Hemisphere, as well as head-coach duties in the domestic competition. Also, she has been a TV commentator, motivational speaker, events manager and political adviser in roles centred around elite sport.

As a player, she represented the Silver Ferns between 1990-93 and 1996-99, including the 1990 Commonwealth Games, during more than a decade in Wellington netball.

Dearns aims to have four training sessions a week next year involving the entire squad.

This year the squad trained three times a week, with some players flying in from outside Wellington. Dearns will also look to the central zone to provide some of players.

"Ideally, I would like to have an open trial to add to the core roster of eight or nine signed athletes, so we can see what players are around," Dearns said.

She believes her recent international experience will be invaluable in her new role.

"I've certainly not been in a netball wilderness, and have recently helped to prepare the Scottish national squad for their recent international games including the European Cup campaign and also undertaken high-performance coaching in New Zealand and overseas.

"I want to embrace and listen to the zone - that's very important to me. Being visible and being engaged with our community keeps it real.

"We will need to focus on reducing the team's inherent fear of failure, which I think has had some affect their performance over a number of years. The players need to believe that making a mistake does not mean they are going to lose."

Pulse and Netball Central Zone chief executive Carolyn Young said Dearns' skillset was exactly what they had wanted.

Winning the ANZ Championship next year would be on Dearns' wish list, "however from an organisation perspective we know that it takes time to build success. We want to take what we have learned over the last seven years and build a long-term high-performance programme that will provide sustained success in the ANZ championship."

Katrina Grant will return for a seventh year with the Pulse, having signed for next season.

"Although Robyn will be a hard act to follow, I'm really looking forward to working with Tanya next season. She has a great deal of experience as both player and a coach and I'm sure she will bring a new outlook to the team," Grant said.

NZME.