Australia's netball coach Norma Plummer claims the Silver Ferns' recent success against her Australian side has come about thanks to "leaked secrets", according to a report in today's Sydney Morning Herald.
Australia have not beaten the Kiwis since 2004, and Plummer said it had not helped that secret information, including training methods and physiological statistics, had been passed to the Silver Ferns from Kiwis studying at our top training institute.
"We didn't hand that [information] out to anyone," Plummer is reported to have said.
"Therefore the only way you can interpret that is that somebody has handpassed it on. You've got to play the game and New Zealand's done it. They've capitalised and we've been a bit slow on that", Plummer went on.
"It's not just me. Australian basketball coach Brian Goorjian's Boomers were beaten [by the Tall Blacks in the recent series]."
The report says Plummer was unhappy that several years ago New Zealand-born PhD students had infiltrated the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS), then been employed by the Silver Ferns and other international sporting organisations.
"We had trained up a lot of the New Zealand people," Plummer told the SMH.
"In the end the director of the Australian Institute of Sport, Peter Fricker, has said: 'Enough is enough - we're now getting beaten. We've shared with the rest of the world our findings'."
The scheduling of this Test in the thick of the National Netball League season had not helped the Australians, Plummer said. The Kiwis' national season had already finished.
"[The New Zealanders] had a rest before they came," Plummer said. "Our girls haven't."
Netball: Ferns' dominance attributed to subterfuge
Norma Plummer
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