KEY POINTS:
It was just what the Kiwi pundits had feared.
After a month of ANZ Championship netball, the New Zealand teams look off the pace in the transtasman competition.
Australian franchises occupy the top four spots in the League standings, each with three wins and a loss. The Silver Fern stacked Waikato/Bay of Plenty Magic have been the only bright spot and also have the same record, but they lie in fifth place on goal differential.
It's five weeks until the next transtasman matches, so there's no better time to ask why the Aussie teams are dominating early on. And who better to shed some light than former Australian coach Jill McIntosh?
McIntosh, who is now in a coaching advisory role with the Wellington-based Central Pulse side, believes our franchises have not quite come to grips with the Australian style of play.
But what's so different about the Australian style?
McIntosh believes the ... ahem ... difference in body shape between the two countries has caused each to adapt their game accordingly.
"The essence of the Australian game is the speed on attack," she explains. "Over the years it is what has worked for Australia because I guess when you look at the shape of the Australian body it is - how could I put it? - it is a lot leaner than the shape of the New Zealand body. And that's just the way we're built, and we've adapted our game to having a lower, flatter game with emphasis on the speed of release."
Defensively, the two nations also vary greatly. New Zealand teams typically employ a zone-type of defence whereby they occupy the space and look for intercepts, while the Aussie teams play a more man-on high pressure defence.
"The difference is the tight one-on-one marking - it's very difficult for them to get free to actually get the ball," McIntosh said.
"The Australian style of defending is a very close one-on-one checking game and I know the young kids have been very frustrated by it because they just can't get free and that causes errors."
So how do the Kiwi teams beat the Aussies?
WORK THAT BODY McIntosh believes fitness and conditioning are a key part of being able to overcome the uncompromising Australian style of defence.
"First and foremost, you have to be as physically fit as you possibly can be because it is a tough style of defence. The Australians have to be as fit as they possibly can to sustain that effort and when you're playing against that style you have to be very fit and very strong because it's tough to get away from your player and you have to move more than what you normally would."
BE AGGRESSIVE
Kiwi players need to have a certain kind of fearlessness when it comes to taking on the Aussies. McIntosh says New Zealanders need to become more hardened to the added body contact that comes with the tight one-on-one marking and drive harder in to the ball.
"They need to be stronger when they go to the ball, be more committed when they go for the ball and have stronger bodies and keep going. Too many players are getting caught shying away and stop before the ball comes."
But McIntosh says this can be easily remedied. "They're not major things and I'm sure all coaches will be addressing those issues."
MENTAL TOUGHNESS
Overcoming the relentless Australian defence also requires the players to be mentally tough, according to McIntosh. Aussie defences will hassle and harry the opposition all day and the Kiwi players need to learn not to get frustrated and to keep working hard off the ball to find space. "In the long term that would wear down the player mentally where the player thinks they just can't get the ball so they sort of retreat from it and you just can't have that."
RECONSOLIDATE, GET SOME CONFIDENCE
McIntosh believes with no transtasman clashes scheduled for the next five weeks, Kiwi sides must get some structure back into their play and regain some confidence in their game plan.
"The teams that haven't done as well as they've hoped now have a chance to consolidate," she says. "For the players, they're going back to a style of netball they feel comfortable with, they're going back and playing on players who they know and who they've played on before. So it's an opportunity for all the five teams to build some confidence before they tackle the Australian teams again."
PATIENCE, YOUNG GRASSHOPPER
New Zealand sides don't have the same depth the Australian teams do. Over a million people play netball in Australia, while back here, the number is about 120,000. As a result, the New Zealand franchises have some very young and inexperienced players turning out in the competition.
McIntosh believes it will take these young players a bit of time to work the Aussies out. "I think for some of the New Zealand teams they have players there that have never played Australia at this sort of level before," she says. "So the first time they've been blown away but as we progress through they will be more comfortable with that style of play."
