KEY POINTS:
Twelve years ago, young Cook Islander Angela Tangimetua was the world's most accurate netball shooter.
Today she has reinvented herself and is now adept at getting under the feet and in the faces of the world's best goal shoots.
Tangimetua, playing at her fourth world championships this week in Waitakere, has moved down the court to goal keep - trying to stop the goals rather than score them.
But yesterday, after a breathtaking 45-43 win over Singapore in round robin play, Tangimetua vowed this would be her swansong - now she has a promising daughter in the wings.
No one at these world champs can top Tangimetua's playing record. As Angela Maoate, she first appeared as a 17-year-old at the 1991 world champs in Sydney - the only survivor from that tournament playing in Auckland. Four years later, she topped the shooting statistics in Birmingham, and returned for another world tournament in Christchurch in 1999.
That was to be her final hurrah, but encouraged by family and the Cook Islands coach, former Silver Fern captain Ana Noovao, 33-year-old mother-of-two Tangimetua is back in a new position and with a new lease of life for the tournament in her home city.
"I thought there would be a lot less pressure at goal keep, but I've got just as many jitters as I did at goal shoot," the Cooks' co-captain said
"I sort of know what's going through the shooters' heads, and sometimes I can see what's about to happen but I can't get my feet there in time."
In Singapore in 2011, Tangimetua hopes to be in the stands, maybe watching her elder daughter, Eteta, take her place in the Cooks team.
The 13-year-old is "following in my footsteps", Tangimetua said, and as of next week will get the full attention of her netball legend mother. She already coaches her school netball team.
This week, her two daughters are in the stands watching her for the first time.
"I have the support of my family this time, and it lifts me," she said.
The 11th-seeded Cook Islands side had a grand seesaw battle with unranked Singapore yesterday.
With less than a minute on the clock, Tangimetua batted the ball out of the Singaporean circle, giving the Cook Islands a desperate victory to keep their quarterfinal hopes alive.
Today they will need to beat South Pacific rivals Fiji to secure a place in the top eight - a game Tangimetua will relish, getting under the skin of towering shooter Taraima Rara.
