Netball: Emotional night for Aitken in Invercargill

Irene van Dyk is set to play her 200th test tonight. Photo / Getty Images

Ruth Aitken first strode out on to the court in front of a home crowd as Silver Ferns coach in Invercargill.

A decade on, Aitken will tonight mark her last home test in charge of the Ferns at the same stadium when New Zealand take on England in their second and final test of the series.

Aitken's first home assignment was against Barbados and she said she still remembers that bitterly cold winter night in Invercargill, although more than a 100 tests later she struggles to recall the scoreline.

"We won by a lot, I know that," she said.

For the record, the Ferns won 88-27. It was the third win of Aitken's career - Monday night's 62-40 win over England was her 86th and after tonight she will have just one more tour to Australia in which she'll have a chance to add to that tally.

Aitken said she is still coming to grips with the fact that her remarkable ride with the Silver Ferns is nearing its end.

"It does feel quite surreal really, I still don't quite believe it. It will probably be when it all stops that it will set in," she said. "There will probably be mixed feelings, I think there will be a sense of loss there, this group has been very important to me for a very long time."

Tonight will also be an emotional night for another of the Ferns' stalwarts, with Irene van Dyk set to play her 200th test. The veteran sharpshooter and world's most capped netballer will play her 128th test for New Zealand on top of the 72 she played for South Africa from 1995-99. But this remarkable feat took the 39-year-old by surprise.

Van Dyk said she was not aware of the looming milestone until a Netball New Zealand official told her a couple of weeks ago.

"Where has the time gone, you know? It is incredibly special and I'm just very, very lucky to be in that position," said van Dyk.

"Although it's not a goal I ever really set out to achieve, I'm quite stoked to achieve something like that."

Whenever van Dyk reaches a milestone the Ferns seem to pull a big performance out. When she became the world's most capped netballer in October 2005, New Zealand thumped Australia by a record margin of 25 goals, and she marked her 100th test match for the Ferns in Auckland two years ago with a 16-goal win over Australia.

But van Dyk is quick to stamp out any talk that the team will be motivated to produce a big performance to ensure she marks her newest record in style. "I don't really want it to be about doing it for me, or doing it for Ruth either, because after this game we take on the big guns, so it is really important we just get the job done and do it well," she said.

One of the players likely to be tasked with trying to contain van Dyk tonight is Stacey Francis, one of the new breed of athletic England defenders.

The 23-year-old said while it was demoralising to lose by such a hefty margin on Monday, she takes heart that many of their mistakes are easily fixed.

Where and when

Silver Ferns v England
Invercargill, 7.40 tonight.