Dame Noeline Taurua's contract expires in November. Photo / Photosport
Daring to be different has come to define Noeline Taurua. She was, however, far from destined to embark on a resilient, trend-setting coaching career.
“Never,” Taurua says. “Coaching was the last thing I thought of.”
Taurua’s refusal to fit the mould, her intent to challenge accepted norms, wasn’t always celebrated.
Throughout her uncertain rise in an inherently conservative sport, she was often painted as an outcast.
Those perceptions forced her to overcome self-doubt and repeated rejection – twice passed over by the national team – before belatedly arriving as the saviour who guided the Silver Ferns from their all-time low to crowning glory four years ago in Liverpool.
Recognition as a Dame and Halberg coach of the year followed that unrivalled transformation, yet as she ponders passing the baton after eight years at the helm, there is no sense she is content.
On the verge of her last World Cup with the Silver Ferns, Taurua reflects on the origins of her netball passion that continues to burn and how she was hoodwinked into an accidental coaching career that will, in the fullness of time, be regarded among netball’s greatest.
Watch Taurua bark sideline orders or hear Irene van Dyk regale tails of her ruthless trainings and it’s easy to believe she is a demanding dictator. Quite the opposite is true. As the youngest of five, Taurua remains most comfortable letting others take the lead.
“To some degree, I must do peoples’ heads in because I’m not really the person who goes ‘hey you must do this’. I’m not a coach as such,” Taurua says. “I take a back seat but hopefully provide enough direction or vision to reel them in to want to be a Silver Fern.”
Raised in a rugby and netball household, with her mother playing in the Wednesday night housewife league as it was called, Taurua attended Paremoremo primary school, which had one set of bibs, while her father worked as an officer at the maximum-security prison near Albany.
While netball held prominence Taurua first gravitated to athletics as a sprinter who favoured the 200 metres and hurdles. To this day, her long jump and 100m records are etched on the Taupō-nui-a-Tia College honours board.
Taurua couldn’t wait to fly the post-school coop. At 18 years old she set up camp in London on the traditional two-year visa, working in a Camden pub, travelling Europe at every opportunity, before returning home broke to her parents. By that point, they had relocated from Taupō to Wellington where her father worked as Māori affairs advisor to future National Prime Minister Jenny Shipley.
While working in the post office as an ANZ banking teller, and then the Department of Labour, Taurua’s netball career caught light in the capital.
In her second club season, she joined a PIC team boasting the late Leilani Reid, Gail Parata, Julie Seymour and now Ferns assistant coach Debbie Fuller. Bernice Mene was another notable addition to emerge from that Waimarama Taumaunu stud farm.
In 1994 Fuller and Taurua, a short, instinctive, creative goal attack, made their first Ferns team alongside Anna Stanley.
These days Fuller describes Taurua as hearty, robust and joyful but says her deep-thinking, clear communication was evident from their first encounter.
“It’s a beautiful thing to bring the ball down court and have absolute confidence that your attacking end, led by Noels, was going to turn opposition heads inside out and score seamlessly. She was always very curious as a player; always able to bring out strengths of individuals,” Fuller says.
“Noels is still the same. She’s considered and quiet but also very caring. That’s one of the qualities she brings into coaching. You don’t work for her, you work with her. There’s always a sense of partnership in everything you do.”
Taurua is much more self-deprecating about her playing abilities.
“I ran away from people,” she chuckles. “Because of my athletics background, I had the speed. I wasn’t a great shooter compared to the percentages now. I was more of a person who feeds and tried to bolster those around me.”
After 34 tests that included Commonwealth Games silver and World Cup bronze medals, a second ACL injury abruptly ended Taurua’s playing career in her early 30s on the eve of the ’99 world champs in Christchurch.
“It’s hard to take at the time. It’s not on your terms and you can’t do anything about it. Sometimes, especially with me at that age, you can’t come back.”
Taurua shares empathy when her players suffer similar setbacks but, at the time, such a crippling blow left her at a crossroads. She pondered returning to the workforce before Ruth Aitken intervened by coaxing her into moving to Hamilton.
“Ruth lied to me. I was only going in to help as a 13th man if something happened. I didn’t really understand what I was getting myself involved in. I never had any inkling to be a coach at all. I really enjoyed it with her at the helm.”
One year after unexpectedly dipping her toe in as an assistant Taurua was thrust into the Waikato-Bay of Plenty head coach role when Aitken assumed charge of the Ferns.
Taurua led the Magic to three titles in 11 years. In a competition dominated by Australian teams, she is the only New Zealand coach to claim the transtasman crown. Behind the scenes, though, she felt out of her depth for much of that tenure.
In the beginning, Taurua struggled to shake comparisons to her playing era. The next stage she tried to find everything and anything to help problem solve. The quest for some form of holy grail followed. Coping mechanisms to deal with consuming stress were sought out. Eventually, Taurua realised she didn’t need to do everything herself.
“Even when I picked up the head coach role I didn’t really know what I was doing. Years eight to 10 you understand what your role is, the ability to work with people, talk with people, and get out of your own head.
“I understood myself, the areas I needed to improve and that it’s not just one recipe. It’s about how you work with people, knowing your values and how that reflects on the team.”
Through that extended transition phase of learning her coaching craft Taurua raised five children – her youngest is now 15 – while battling ingrained perceptions of a women’s role.
“When you’re trying to find your way and having young kids that was very hard. Your parents and grandparents expect the women to be at home looking after your kids so you’re doing something totally different to their generation. You’ve got to work around that. Now times are changing.
“It’s so much easier than when they were babies during my days at the Magic. The kids are grown up now. As long as there’s food they’re sweet as.”
Van Dyk first linked with Taurua in the shooting circle for one season at the Capital Shakers when she was “fresh off the boat” from South Africa in 2000.
At the Magic, where they joined forces for a decade, Taurua’s alternative coaching style left a profound impact, with van Dyk recalling her ruthless approach to training.
One two-hour session involved switching from one-on-one boxing and attempting to nail on-court set plays with minimal, if any, drink breaks.
“Everyone was absolutely exhausted but we had to make the plays work,” van Dyk says. “It taught us resilience and that we needed to take care of the ball and each other. It pushed everyone outside their comfort zone.”
On another occasion, players converged on a squash court to challenge their spacing, timing and physicality in tight confines.
“There were extremes. As players when you go through tough times, those are the things that pull you together and make you become one.”
For one preseason team-building activity Taurua sent her squad into the Rotorua Redwoods at night and told them to navigate their way back. Van Dyk, Jodi Brown and Frances Solia almost missed their 6am flight home the following morning.
“Everyone was terrible at reading maps. We had to finish this activity and we finished around 5.45am because we had to run onto the plane. I didn’t want to sit next to anyone because we were in the bush the whole night. We were filthy, smelly. It was just horrific.”
The most notorious incident centres on Taurua turning up to training in a bumble bee outfit. The Magic were in a hole, losing their first five games of the season, leaving Taurua determined to break their somber mood.
“She wanted to lift everyone’s spirits. It definitely lightened the load. When the story came out it painted her as a muppet coach. That put more fire in our bellies than anything else. We won every game after that so it worked.”
No one season under Taurua was ever the same.
“Every year we changed our goals and how we were going to get there. I can distinctly remember my last year. I was 42, and she said to me ‘I know you think you’re fast but you’re slow. Don’t come to the ball. We will bring the ball to you’. She’s not afraid to be brutally honest because she knows the person and how to get the best out of them.”
It’s difficult to fathom after Taurua rebuilt the Ferns from their 2018 Commonwealth Games nadir that featured an embarrassing defeat to Malawi and missing a medal for the first time but Netball New Zealand consistently overlooked her leadership until it was impossible to ignore.
In 2015, three years before her appointment to lead the Silver Ferns, Taurua couldn’t make the shortlist for the national post, with under-21s coach Janine Southby and Australian Julie Fitzgerald preferred.
Taurua’s strong personality and convictions clashed with Netball NZ hierarchy.
“Now looking back it’s all part of it,” Taurua says. “At the time it did piss me off. You make a choice whether you interview on what you think they want to hear – or so they know what to expect. I was really clear and confident in what I wanted to do so when I didn’t get the job it wasn’t an issue because I knew I wasn’t the right person.”
Rejection strengthened Taurua’s resolve to enhance her point of difference. She dusted off her disappointment to lead the Southern Steel to the transtasman minor premiership and then jetted off to guide the Melbourne Storm-owned Sunshine Coast Lightning to successive Australian titles.
Only then, after delivering five championships in two countries, did Netball NZ see sense.
“The last interview was the third time I went for it. I couldn’t be happier now I’m in here. It’s the best of the best in our country so it’s a privileged position.”
Taurua’s success with the Ferns is typified by the 2019 World Cup triumph – New Zealand’s first in 16 years – and the 2021 Constellation Cup that broke a barren nine-year drought against the vaunted Australian Diamonds.
Away from the spotlight, Taurua has brought every level of the game on her revolution.
Assessing her proudest moment Taurua points to last year’s Commonwealth Games bronze in Birmingham claimed by an inexperienced squad.
“It was a turning point for the new generation to come through at a pinnacle event. When you look at those in that group now, they will be fossils who will hold the game up for the next two, three cycles.”
From the Magic to the Steel, Sunshine Coast to the Ferns, Taurua’s coaching philosophy has evolved to hold authenticity, standards and connections at its core. She says everyone in netball understands zone defence and setting walls. At the elite level, the gold is found beyond the bread and butter.
“It’s about the people. That’s where you get the difference and the pureness around a campaign.
“I like to win. I like doing things a wee bit differently because I get bored myself. I like to get the energy moving and create something that hasn’t been done before.
“There’s always a bit of angst in there. Athletes need to know everything is not smooth, that you’ve got to be comfortable in the uncomfortable.”
The importance Taurua places on relationships is evident in her bringing legendary defender Casey Kopua and inspirational captain Laura Langman out of international exile for the 2019 World Cup success.
Langman is returning in a coaching capacity with the Ferns for the looming World Cup in South Africa, too. At the Sunshine Coast Taurua also fostered the best from world-class English defender Geva Mentor and Jamaican shooter Jhaniele Fowler.
While non-negotiable fitness standards form the backbone of Taurua’s regime, these are not as they seem.
Prevailing perception has cemented the notion that all players must reach certain testing levels. The premise is instead based on individuals – no matter their size or shape – exploring mental and physical limits by pushing themselves to the brink to fulfil the devotion to the explosive, fast playing style.
“I would be able to do the fitness testing,” Taurua suggests. “It’s blown up into this big thing but it’s a stake in the ground and the transparency around that so everyone knows what the starting point is.
“The fitness is not on numbers. It’s on the mental stickability and tenaciousness; when you’re really tired you can push your body to another level if you’re committed.
“It’s amazing what people can do if they want to be there. You can go into those realms. We’re quick to box people in a certain grouping but we don’t do enough to open them up.
“When you get one individual, and then you have a group, that’s where you get that vulnerability and beautiful things evolve from people going into those spaces. That’s what coaching is about.”
Later this year, at the conclusion of the four-test Constellation Cup series in October, Taurua will decide her coaching future. Whether she stays or shuffles off from the limelight, her legacy will be her enduring determination to be bold.
Van Dyk calls her a trailblazer: “She will be remembered as the one that picked us out of the trenches; the coach who is innovative, takes chances. She knows who she wants and where she wants to go.”
Fuller says of her front-row seat: “She’s carved a new path. She’s created a new edge in New Zealand netball and honoured the game style – about space, timing, speed.”
Taurua views her presence as a guardian and, therefore, attempts to deflect her significance.
“I’ll be involved in netball anyway, it might just be my role will be different. As a coach you know when it’s time. Once we finish the World Cup I’ll know what needs to be done. People will tell me what is right. Whether I leave or stay is not about me.”
The Silver Ferns will live on when Taurua departs. There will, though, be no replacing and no replicating Aunty Noels’ distinctly different approach.
Ilona Maher is comfortably rugby's most followed personality across all social media.