Netball: Langman's return to old role

Laura Langman is happy with her move to wing defence. Photo / Getty Images

She's back in the position she calls home, but Silver Ferns midcourter Laura Langman isn't expecting a warm welcome from the Australian midcourt in Sunday's first test.

Langman, who has spent most of the past two seasons at centre, is back in the wing defence bib this year to make way for returning midcourter Temepara George.

The switch sees Langman reappear in the role she burst to prominence in as a teenager, when she was first selected in the national side.

After the initial resettling in period, Langman believes she is beginning to find her feet in her new midcourt position. But she expects the fast and accurate Australian frontline will provide her with a more accurate gauge of just how far she has to go with her re-education in the role.

"I think [the Australian series] will be a test of how much sharper I need to get to be world-class level," said Langman.

"I'm definitely going to go in there with a take-no-prisoners attitude and hopefully give them a bit of a welcome back as well."

Given her history at wing defence, there is no doubt that Langman has the potential to cause the Australian midcourt numerous headaches.

Langman, 23, was regarded as something of a phenomenon when, as an 18-year-old, she debuted for the Ferns back in 2005. In the space of a year the youngster had cemented her place in the starting line-up, ousting New Zealand's most capped netballer, Lesley Rumball.

It was widely agreed that Langman could go on and be the world's best in the position.

But when George withdrew from the Ferns before the 2007 World Championships the national selectors turned to Langman to plug the gap at centre, a position she had spent some time in with the Waikato/Bay of Plenty Magic in the old domestic league.

Over the past couple of years Langman has grown into the centre role, fine-tuning her attacking game to complement her defensive skills.

She knew though, with George back in the fray this year, a move back to wing defence was on the cards. Despite her return to the position coinciding with a disappointing 2-1 series loss to the World Seven last month, Langman said she was enjoying the change of scenery. She admits, however, there are times when she stands at the transverse line forlornly gazing into the attacking third.

"The side of centre I really like is you get the opportunity to feed, so you kind of get the best of both worlds. In saying that though as a wing defence I want to have a really big presence on attack and help out with that transition through the court. So I'll get my attacking fix there."

As well as relearning the finer points of the wing defence role, Langman has had to get her head around coach Ruth Aitken's new midcourt strategy.

There were obvious teething problems with the new gameplan during the test series against the World Seven as the faster, more aggressive style of attacking game initially created a number of misunderstandings between players, leading to an extremely high error count. But the merits of the new strategy finally became evident in the third test, with the Ferns stringing together some spectacular passages of attacking play.

Langman said these glimpses of brilliance would need to be a lot more frequent if they were to enjoy success against the Australian Diamonds.

"We've had to really open up our minds to thinking and playing a different way, which took us, as everyone saw, a while to adjust to," said Langman.

"But it's been really great and I think it's added some spice to our midcourt. Hopefully we can continue to piece it together like we did in that third test, coming up against Australia."

"Consistency is what wins games and when we had our debrief [following the third test] it is something we all touched upon and said that we needed to improve on."