Steve Robilliard: Sing when you're winning

Australia has plenty of netballers. About a million of them, depending on whose figures you want to believe.

But no matter where national coach Norma Plummer looks, she just can't find the players who can beat the Silver Ferns.

Now I could cynically suggest that Norma just doesn't look as far afield as Ruth Aitken or Yvonne Willering. Netball New Zealand has recruited rather shrewdly over the years from South Africa and Fiji and several places inbetween.

But I wouldn't write that in a New Zealand newspaper, even if I thought it.

After all, the world of sport is a global village and netball is just another small suburb, although things have been getting a bit feisty in the streets lately.

The Sydney test in June last year was little better than a backyard brawl. Thank you, umpires.

Since losing the fight in Sydney, our Norma has been ticking off the failed game plans one by one.

In Auckland in October she was going to avoid any talk of a physical get-square and use skill to beat the Ferns.

Liz Ellis was carried off the court in the first quarter and the game plan went with her.

At the Commonwealth Games, hometown advantage and a different-looking Australian team under Sharelle McMahon would present the Kiwis with a different set of problems.

Not really. Gold medal New Zealand.

Okay ... now we're really mad. Or would like to be.

We try hard, but we just can't bring ourselves to dislike Irene van Dyk. Heck, even Liz Ellis will say Irene is as fine a person as she is an athlete.

Those of us with long netball memories recall Irene battling away up the sharp end of a largely inept post-apartheid South Africa. It's only fair she gets to play with a skilled and quality side, but couldn't it have been Singapore?

Irene is 34 and we think it's time she gave it away. She could find some other use for the netball post she no doubt has in her backyard. On sunny days, she could dry out the biltong made from New Zealand's finest beef, instead of using it to hang Australia's netball reputation.

We have a bit more luck channelling some resentment towards Vili Davu, but then, she makes it easy. She beats up on Sharelle McMahon, and Sharelle has had icon status here in Aussie since the'99 Worlds in Christchurch. I won't remind you.

And yet, there is something quite endearing about Vili the villain. She plays with rare passion. We carry a suspicion that she not only intimidates opponents but also umpires. Nothing more than a theory, mind.

As tough as Irene and Vili are, the player who really drives Norma nuts is Temepara George, because we just don't have a centre court player to run with her.

Jess Shynn has the strength but not the endurance. Natalie von Bertouch is quick but slightly built and far less experienced.

Her sister Laura has finally been selected and perhaps the family combination can make something magic happen across the middle.

Aussie male netball fans universally approve the selection of both von Bertouches. They are great to watch, if I can put it that way.

The current undeniable truth is that you could trawl our netball courts from Perth to Sydney, from Adelaide to Darwin and still not find the players to faze the Ferns.

That's kind of okay, because it really is New Zealand's time at the moment.

A look at the number of international caps reveals that the weight of experience is on your side.

Like many sports, it's a cyclical thing.

New Zealand has won eight of the last 10 encounters, including of course, the 2003 world championship final and Melbourne last March.

Go back to the 90s, and Australia won a lop-sided 18 out of 19 games in one stretch that must have had Netball New Zealand wondering if the heartache would ever end.

Norma now knows your pain.

IT'S a pain that could become chronic if there is substance to the statistics that women and girls are moving away from netball in Australia and taking to soccer. This started well before the recent World Cup in Germany.

In significant parts of Sydney, soccer-playing numbers have grown by 60 per cent among females.

Just why this is happening is a subject for another day.

Suffice to say, the pool from which we will be drawing players is going to be shallower in the coming years.

Right now in our national league, we have several tall, young shooters and defenders who are a match for Irene and Vili in height, if not experience. We have lacked this in recent years and these players can't develop soon enough for our worried coaching staff.

I expect the Silver Ferns to dine out on the Aussies' inexperience both in Brisbane tomorrow night and in Sydney on Tuesday.

You may have gone hungry in the 90s, but you are making up for it now. Eat like it's your last meal.

* Steve Robilliard is a commentator with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.