Netball: A smile from the enforcer

Larissa Willcox may well be the first Silver Fern described as having "the mongrel about her".

But she didn't take offence to the tag, provided by her captain Casey Williams. Rather, she's embraced it and is happy to be known as the team's enforcer.

She also hopes that abrasive edge can inspire her new team-mates from an insipid second test defeat to Australia with the series poised at 1-1 in Brisbane today.

It's all very un-netball like, talking about mongrels and enforcers, but Willcox has added a much-needed, dare we say it, Australian edge.

"I love it, it's great," Willcox said. "I have a bit of a no-nonsense attitude and I really don't care if it's off the ball or on the ball, if you're wearing another colour, I'm gonna get you.

"Heaps of people say it's a non-contact sport but you don't walk off with bruises on your body because it's a non-contact sport. It's just a reminder to your opposition that you're there.

"I have a lot of energy on the court and if it's going to inspire the other girls to lift a few per cent, I'll do whatever it takes."

These fighting words are all delivered with a smile and Willcox is a thoroughly engaging character off the court. And she takes exception to past reports of her being an on-court bully. She insists her body-crashing on court isn't reckless.

"There's been two different titles: the aggressive bully and the aggressive player. I'm more in the aggressive player category.

"I'm not going to beat you down because I feel like it. I'm not a bully, I'm a really nice person.

"The Australians don't lack any physical contest as well and you only give as good as you get. It's a positive for the team."

Willcox, 26, was born in Raetihi but her parents shifted to Perth, where she lived for 18 years as her netball career flourished. There's the Aussie twang in the voice but she's always been dinkum Kiwi.

Like the time in 2004, the last time the Ferns played in Perth, and Willcox and her dad Shane scored tickets from a netball friend, right behind the Australian bench.

"They won and I was sitting there screaming, 'yeeeah, go the Ferns'. Just to have the Aussie bench turn around and think, 'who the hell is that?' ... It was a very proud moment, all decked out in my black gear."

The transtasman league opened her eyes to a move and she joined the Canterbury Tactix. After one season in red-and-black country, she was in the mix, then coach Ruth Aitken summoned her from outside the initial training squad for the World Seven series.

It required a crash course in the national anthem, "cheat sheets" from her team-mates and some embarrassment at singing practise in Wellington.

"My most nervous moment was definitely the national anthem. I was saying, 'can't I just go out there and play?' You can lip synch but every now and then I hear myself saying things and I quieten back down. It is a really proud moment."

Now, she says, she's living her dream.

Willcox reckoned she nailed the anthem at Melbourne's Hisense Arena last Wednesday, before she took the court for her first transtasman test.

She could see her parents Shane and Leanne in the crowd and almost had to blink back tears as God Defend New Zealand rang out.

Willcox got the nod at wing defence at halftime, alongside another Ferns enforcer, Joline Henry, and did a solid job as New Zealand stormed home after a horror start.

She was critical of her own performance but will likely start at wing defence tomorrow and get a chance to really give her Aussie opposite Kimberlee Green something to think about.

- NZPA