The Netball Show
S7 Ep43: NWC 5 Year Ani : Lisa Alexander (21st July 2024)
(upbeat music) - Nat Netcock here. I'm really proud to be an ambassador for Flyhawk, leading the way for Netball and Women's Sport. Flyhawk design and make Netball dresses, have Netball kit, Netball team wear, and Netballs plus much, much more. Head to flyhawk.com now. - The netball show with Flyhawk. Raising the bar for Netball and Women's Sport. - We see you with the culture of the diamonds. Netball World Cup in Liverpool in 2019. Can you quite believe it's five years ago? - I can't, but I can as well because so much has happened. Like we had COVID in the middle of that. And I also finished up with the diamonds at the beginning of 2020. So look, it's really flown. I've been quite busy, particularly in the coach education, coach mentoring area. And I'm really enjoying that. And just trying to really lift up the coach's profiles here in Australia. I've done a series of interviews with our head coaches, which has gone over really well. And so I'm going to continue that. I've got an interview, Nick with Stacey Marenkevich, where I'm hoping to really, you know, get the people out there to really understand how elite our coaches are. - Head coach over the years, it's never an easy task on selection of those athletes, but does it get easier, I suppose? - Look, I think it does on one hand because you seem to have a much bigger team around you now to assist you. When I first started, I didn't have a wellbeing manager even. Oh, actually, yes, I did, sorry, I did. But, you know, nowadays, I've got sports psychologists that are helping and so many more avenues to assist both the coach and the athlete in what is a very difficult process. Selection into teams is tough. Particularly at the national level, you're representing a country and it's often a dream that young people have that they really want to represent their country. So it's quite apart from anything else. And, you know, it's a great privilege, but it's also, you know, it's heavy on the heart when you have to tell someone they've missed out on a team. - Explain a little about how the diamonds were pre-tournament, how many camps did you have going with that kind of thing? - We didn't have a lot. We had a lot of roadblocks, actually. When I think back to it, there's many rules that World Netball have and we have to follow those rules, of course. So we have to put in a squad of 20 quite early. And this is even before, there could be injuries and then you get injuries and then you have to go through a whole process of putting other players into the squad and sometimes World Netball says no. So it can be quite frustrating, that process leading up to the selection of the team. Particularly for Australia, because we've got such depth, we could put three teams in and those teams could come one, two and three. That is a possibility. So it is a very tough selection process. And then with the team, because we had our Super Netball season going on at the same time, we only had about three weeks preparation leading into Liverpool. And look, everyone might say that's enough time, but for us, I don't think it was enough time because we had to bed down a couple of new positions in that group. We had Jamie Lee Price in Wing Defense and we also had Sarah Cloud at goal keeper. So look, the good thing is though, Andy, there was always a silver lining. Those two players played magnificently well in South Africa to secure a gold medal. So, you know, it's always a process of, you know, you've got to put new ones in and they've got to have the coaching and sometimes it doesn't work out for you. But at the end of the day, your job as a coach is to improve those athletes in your team as well as win. And we didn't quite get there, but I'm very proud of the effort that the players put in to that whole preparation. And I don't think we could have done much more than what we did. - It's very much about the diamonds and obviously throughout the tournament, that's where you mean focus was, but what did you make of the rest of the group because you're in group here? That's Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. It was a good group. - Yeah, it was a very strong group. And that was the thing that annoyed me a little bit. And he was the fact that people sort of, you know, poo pooed a little bit the group. But I thought it was actually a quite an interesting and strong group that gave us lots of challenges, particularly Zimbabwe. I knew they would be strong and they proved to be in that tournament because I'd seen the work that their coaches and their players had put into the four years previous. They'd come to a professional development program that I ran in Namibia back in 215. I knew they were really keen to make World Cup. So I was thrilled to see them there and see them do so well. And then also Sri Lanka, they, you know, they keep on plugging away and, you know, they were so thrilled to play us. And then Northern Ireland coached by Dan Ryan. They were tough. It was a great start for us, the tournament to have, you know, to play against them. So all in all, we had a pretty rough in terms of our own standards. - Oh, truly, come on. - Yeah, no, I thought it was a bit tough. And we had a lot of criticism. That was the hardest thing to take, actually, Andy, was the criticism from home and also from our own commentators that we weren't, you know, brilliant, brilliant. But, you know, that was also showing great disrespect to our opposition, which was really annoying from my point of view. And, you know, that's what also makes the World Cup so special. It's just so elite. And it is magnificent to see so many different countries now coming up. - You mentioned about, obviously, just being around Liverpool. And now what was the home support like for the roses? What did you feel that was like? - I knew it would be that, look, I had a dream that it would be that good, but it was better than I thought. I thought England really embraced the roses. And we were staying at the same hotel as they were. And you could just tell that they were being overwhelmed by, you know, a lot of the support in a good way and was part of what they had to deal with. We also got terrific support from English supporters, from New Zealand. Our own Australian supporters were magnificent. So it was a real carnival atmosphere. It was a brilliant atmosphere. And I thought Liverpool was a brilliant city to have that World Cup. And I'd love to go back there, you know, another time as a, you know, coaching maybe another country would be fun. - I was staying in the same hotel as Scotland. And when I eventually get around to write my book, somebody from the Scotland team ended up eating the last croissant at breakfast. - Well, we always say Andy, leaders should eat last. - After the final then, that lost by one, I suppose. What does somebody like yourself say to that group of players when you see that look in their faces? - Oh, look, I'd had practice, obviously, the year before when England beat us by one. And that was such a shock. So at least I'd had some practice a year before, which I didn't really want to have. But look, I thought we did magnificently. Well, as I said, people were underestimating how good New Zealand were South Africa and also England. And I said, this will be the toughest ever World Cup. We are not a lay down Mizzaire to win. And they didn't believe me, but, you know, our semi-final against South Africa was extraordinarily tough. And then we had to deal with New Zealand who were pretty injured and banged up. I mean, Amelia Anne Ikenazio was, you know, definitely injured. And Casey Kapoor is on her last legs, I reckon. So, you know, they played a brilliant game. They were smart. They got away with a few, you know, not getting as many penalties quite as we did. They were smarter there. And, you know, we just didn't really press ahead like we should have. And I think that was also a psychological barrier for us that this particular team had trouble if another team was very close. And so, you know, we had the one goal victory against New Zealand during the week and certainly New Zealand came out with great intensity and were very tough. I just said to the players at the end of the game that, you know, you've got to be proud of winning a silver medal. It's not, you know, we did lose a game, but at the end of the day, it is a, it's a hot competition and we must show respect. Even though we had a few people upset, it was very important that we maintained our dignity and understood there are a lot of people there supporting us and we need to keep a smile on our faces. You're more than complimentary about Tim Nolene being knighted and she was shortly afterwards. - Yeah, Nolene took over a team that, you know, really were quite broken after the Commonwealth Games, really broken. I knew a lot of them. I know them personally, a lot of the players. And I don't like it when New Zealand's not strong in netball. I think it's really important for netball when New Zealand is strong. And because it is a heart and soul of world netball in many respects, one of the smallest countries and they always hunch above their weight, but I knew that she would be revered after that performance. It was an amazing performance alongside her coaching of the premises with Sunshine Coast Lightning. So I'd worked closely with her at Sunshine Coast Lightning as Australian coach and ironically, you know, I probably got unfairly criticized after that performance and Nolene got absolutely revered as she should for the performance of the team and also herself. - Finally, obviously, netball World Cup moves to Sydney in 2027. And that's going to be super special, isn't it? - Oh, so super special because of the number of reasons it's our centenary of netball in Australia, of course. And also it'll bring back such great memories of our victory there in 215. And so all the players should be really the heroes of this tournament. They hopefully will be there supporting the current Australian team to really perform at their best. And I know many of the players are really looking forward to that event. You know, we've got our new CEO now. We've got our new chair. And you know, Liz Alice and Stacey West are very excited about this competition coming up. And we want to show the world what we can do when we put on a great event in Sydney. - The netball show is now also available via Sky HD, Sky Q and Sky Glass. select states and we're on the podcast's rail. (logo whooshing)
Australia were coached by Lisa Alexander coached the Australian team at the Netball World Cup in 2019 - A new interview