The Netball Show
S7 Ep34: Nia Jones & Jill McIntosh (11th July 2024)
(upbeat music) - This is Stacey Brancis-Bainman. Is your club looking for new kit? Don't forget to try the 3D kit designer online at flyhork.com. - The netball show with flyhork. Raising the bar for netball and winning sports. - Netball show with flyhork. Great catch up with Cardiff Dragons. What a great season they've had. Neajons and Jill McIntosh joins us now. Jill, let's start with you, strong season. - Yes, I think it was a strong season, which could have been better. I will say that we had a few inconsistencies along the way. We had some great matches and some great wins, but we also lost some matches that weren't so great. So, we were aiming to win more than we lost. We didn't quite get there, but in comparison to years gone by, it was a very strong season. - And as fans of the league as well in general, we really saw something special in that squad of 2023-2024. Something you'd be pleased with. - Yes, it was, I guess it's a long season, 18 games. It drags on a bit towards the end, and it was a matter of trying to keep everyone fresh as the weeks went by. But the dragons of 2324 were a terrific bunch. They were a great group of 12, plus the three training partners we had. And I think that's what got them through and made it so enjoyable as the weeks went by, that off court as well as on court. They all got on very well. And they certainly were in there trying every week to give their best performances. And as I said, sometimes it happened, sometimes it didn't. And I guess going forward, that would be the one thing would be to try and get more consistency from week to week. - Yeah, finishing eight then, it's obviously an improvement over the last couple of seasons. - Yeah, undoubtedly, and a byproduct of what we wanted to achieve this year was actually changing that perception of when people, fans, watch card of dragons play, not just assuming that they're gonna be on the losing side all the time, but also we wanted to be an opponent that people knew they'd have to be at their best start to beat. And I do think for the majority of our matches, we did really, really push teams. And at the very least, made it a competitive entertain and fixture to either play in or watch, even if the result didn't come out on our side. And yeah, obviously for me, it's my fifth year, returning back to the dragons. And it was a prospect that couldn't really turn down, knowing that Joe McIntosh was at the helm. And also, I think people are maybe forgetting that we had nine brand new players this year in a squad of 12, which is huge. It's a huge overhaul. And it is, the season is long, but actually it flies by. And the improvements that you can make just in seven days, they do take time. And I think I've said this a lot, but it's no secret that the two teams, it was seeing in the final this weekend in Thunder and Lightning, are squads that have retained the same players a lot of the time over the years. And have also retained the same members of their coaching team for a long period of time. And there's no secret that consistency in those two areas, I think there's often reflecting consistency and performances on the court as well. So it's been a really, really good start this year, really, really enjoyed it. And honestly, all the players are saying the same thing. That's half the battle with these seasons is actually, like Joe's saying, it wavering sometimes. If results don't go your way and it becoming a little bit repetitive, but the vibe and the culture at Dragons this year, and that is created by GLM, the players that have been involved has been amazing. And we've really, really enjoyed it, which is, as we say, been half the battle with some of our really good performances and results. - And that would have been clear since you're playing back? - Yeah, absolutely. It was always a risk though, to only retain two or three of the squad members from last year and to get a brand new group together, you've got to learn about each other's personalities, you've got to learn how each other plays, you've got to get used to the new ways of working under a new coach. And then you're entering every game with everybody expecting that you're just going to roll over and be beaten. So I feel like a lot of the time you have to work doubly as hard as some other teams to get the same level of respect almost, from fans, from pundits and from opponents. And I hope that if anybody's been to watch his life this year, regardless of what the result was, I mean, we had a couple of draws, which I'm sort of a given people their money's worth, but at the very least they've seen are trying to build something really sustainable and really enjoyable for the fans to watch. - Speaking of which, what was it like playing at the arena, those two arena games? - You know what, it was especially the second match where I spent the last quarter on the sideline, we had a great performance against Bath. And actually, there was a little bit of a weekly moment when I looked around and heard for the last five minutes of the crowd just shouting, let's go, dragons, let's go, that it really did show me how far we come, not just as a club, but actually a sport in this country as well. You know, I played in my fair share of half empty, little local sports halls, never mind a jam-packed arena where I'm used to seeing some of my favorite pop stars play. So yeah, it was really, really cool. And hopefully a sign of things to come. And, you know, things around putting on the event and us getting used to playing in those stadiums will also take time. And what was cool was how much more accustomed we were to it. The second time playing against Bath than we were the week before against Rhino. So, quite with anything brand new, there aren't even problems. But even in a week, yeah, we really, really embraced it against Bath and it was an electric atmosphere. But also that was helped by the number of team Bath fans coming across and really adding to that atmosphere as well. We had a great way support of that match, which was really appreciated by all the players, I think. - Jill, you add Lear and Jackie, you formed a really strong on-court relationship, didn't I? - Yes, Jackie and Leah, especially, and Nancy and Lucy are other two defenders over the season, really formed a very cohesive, circle defense unit, and then you add a near into that. And whoever was playing on the centre at the time, so defensively, I thought our team was very strong. And one of the very good aspects, I think that built over the season was the reduction in penalties from week to week. That was a certain name that we wanted to minimise the amount of penalties that were given to the opposition, because in circles, that was a goal. Basically, the shooters are too accurate to be given them to many penalties. So I think in particular, Leah and Jackie worked very hard to minimise that, but in saying that still be in the contest because you can have minimal penalties and not be in the contest, but they were in the contest. And I thought, yeah, that defensive unit of Leah and Jackie built very, very nicely over the season. - At the other end mind, I think the start on Georgia was 130, Michelin, just 31, and it's really like 93%. - Yeah, she's an extremely accurate shooter. She had a lot of attributes, does Georgia. And she had a bit of a hiccup at the beginning of the season, but she got on track. And I think she finished the season remarkably well. And one of the pleasing things that we saw from Georgia was a real aggression, Georgia is a gentle soul and she doesn't have too much aggression in her. But we saw it out there on the port. We said, well, where's that final season? And it would be lovely, you know, with a little bit more aggression. And the accuracy that Georgia has, you know, she's a force to be reckoned with. - Hi, this is Jackie Newton from Cardiff Dragons. And you are listening to us on that four shows. - Mia, what's fan support being like? - Oh, do you know what? I just think they're such a loyal group of fans. It's, you know, it's no secret, as you said, Andy, that results over the last few years have been few and far between for them to have wins to shout about. But I honestly think, and I know every single simply player who comes on this podcast says it that their own fans are the best. And, you know, to them that they might be. But I just love seeing really, really familiar faces. Every single Saturday at House of Sport, but it's not a cheap day out. It's not a couple of quid there, spending their hard-earned cash to come along. But credits to dragons behind the scenes, they really make an effort to put an event on as well as refreshments and decorations and halftime shows. And I think that's been really well rewarded with some really good turnouts this year. I think as well, they really recognize when we're in a match. And when we've been in some really close contests, they've really tried to pay their part, whether that's with a drum or a chant or, you know, an extra loud cheer, whatever happens. So, yeah, they've been really, really loyal over the years. And they're really enjoying the brand of netball that we're trying to put out now this season and hopefully going forward as well into Super League 2.0. - Sponsors as well have been really key, bringing them on the journey is obviously going to be important as well. - Yeah, absolutely. You know, the more eyes and ears we can get on our sport and our team, the more it's going to grow. And that's what everybody wants to happen. You know, everybody's familiar with netball as a grassroots sport in this country, but we're still trying to prove to people that it can be a really viable commercial sport as well. And we're really grateful to the likes of yourself, Cardiff Life, Lexus Nexus, Cardiff University. I think Ridgecrest Cleaning have been fantastic as well. So we really have felt some fantastic partnerships. And again, that's the team behind the team working hard to secure those. But also we work really hard on how we portray ourselves as players on the court and also represent those brands with our behavior on social media and offer it as well. It's constantly in the back of our minds as players, even though we're not full-time professionals. We know that anything we do in our normal lives, private lives, athletic lives, can be reflected on the club and on our brand. So we're really, really passionate about strengths and those partnerships and also drawing in new ones. We want people to be excited about coming on this journey with the Cardiff Dragons. And we want them to feel like they're missing out if they're not. And I do think that, you know, the atmosphere in our home games, if you've not been there, hopefully it has a little bit of FOMO and people will be keen to get on board next season and beyond. - Jill, I appreciate you won't be able to give me any names as such, but it's just a fact of maintaining as many of those athletes as we head into the new year, really. - Yes, one of the strengths of the thunder and the lightning and the pulse going forward has been their attention of a core group of athletes. And I want to hope that the Dragons are able to maintain a core group of athletes from this year. I think it stands and in very good stead going forward. You're not reinventing the wheel every year by having a mess turnover of athletes. So that's still to be determined, you know, signings will happen and that the majority, there won't be all because 12 can't fit into 10, but the majority of the athletes from this year will be going ahead to represent the Dragons in NSL 2.0. - Are you both looking forward to what the league next season will look like? - Well, it's an interesting one. It's a bit of a question mark for me whether it's all going to work and, you know, whether it's not too much too soon. I've seen, I've come from the SSN, the Suncorp Super Network Series in Australia and I know how they're operating and yeah, they're sort of a little bit melt more advanced, I guess, in the financial stakes and what they can offer athletes and they are here, but NSL is trying to get to that same level. And sometimes it takes a bit of time. So I'll be interested to see over the next couple of years. You know, hopefully it'll pan out and that it all works and it just grows and grows. - Yeah, absolutely, as a, you know, as a netball fan and as a sports fan, I think it's exactly what needs to happen. Otherwise we'll be left behind by sports like football, like rugby, like hockey and other Olympic sports that seem to be just growing and growing in terms of their participation and professional levels. So it absolutely needs to happen. I do think the same as jail, like anything brand new, I think probably we can expect and we need to be patient with some teething issues in the first year or two. And especially, you know, athletes who have maybe got dual careers, having some tough decisions to make, whether they put a halt to those and really, really buy into their netball aspirations and their dreams of being a professional athlete. Because, you know, it's all well and good saying that we want it to happen, but if people are still, you know, half one foot in, half one foot out, they don't see the product really improving at the rate that we want it to. If we're comparing it to the song court, they've got, you know, 20, 30 years of full-time training and infrastructure behind them. We don't quite have that yet. So, you know, it's not just players that need to step up. There needs to be changes in management teams and event teams in how governing bodies run things. Yeah, there's loads of things that are going to have to, it's going to be a tough learning curve for everybody in the first couple of years, I think. But I mean, from a personal perspective, because, you know, after that grand final from that Monday, it's pretty much a free for all and people are just going to be staring at their phones, hoping that there may be approach for one of those very precious 80 spots that, of course, has shrunk down from 120. So, yeah, it's hard to get excited from a personal perspective as an athlete yet when none of us have a contract or have a club. But hopefully, who said dragons can really build on this year. You know, we've been really inspired by Seven Stars. I think, obviously, it's a club close to my heart. I used to play for them. And it was any a few short years ago that we were struggling at the bottom of the table only winning a couple of matches. But I think we saw in Joe Tripp's first year there last year, you know, they won almost half their games. We're sitting around mid-table, kept a majority of the group together, and then we're able, of course, to go on and make semi-finals. And I think a club like Dragons can really be inspired by a venture like that, I think. - It's going to be really nice as well, because you've seen the news that she's going to be at Panthers. - Yeah, and I think congratulations to Joe. I've played against it for years. And you could always tell that she might have the potential to go on and be a fantastic coach. You know, she's very self-assured, a brilliant leader, and her results with that squad at Stars, and the players that she was able to retain, results that they've been able to secure this season, they've been really, really consistent against the teams around or below them. And then, of course, they've taken a couple of scalps against the traditional top three teams, if you like, which has been really exciting to watch. - They are rest of, because we need you as part of 2.0. And then the meantime, I rest in, and I'm training. Don't worry, Andy. Nabil's here with Flyhawk. Great to hear from Jill and Nia there. And Kira Edwards, you're the head of participation at Will's Nabil. The results of the cost of living community support fund have just been published. So, as opposed to start off with how successful has it been overall? - We were really pleased with it as a project and an initiative. So, a little bit of background. Last September, so 2023, we launched this cost of living community support fund with the aim of it to be helping those people in Wales who are playing netball in the community, who would going to be struggling this year due to the cost of living crisis and all those extra financial pressures. And what we really didn't want was anyone to have to stop their netball activity or not be able to continue or even start because of extra expenditure. So, you know, club fees or trainers, all that kind of thing. So, we allocated a part of money to this cost of living community support fund and we opened applications last September. We ended up having two different application windows in the end. And yeah, we're, you know, really pleased that we've been able to help so many people carry on playing netball this year in Wales. - It was pretty successful, 335 applicants. Did you notice a clear split in the overall applicants and say under 18 or 18, that kind of thing? - Yeah, actually we did. And, you know, when netball you, especially community netball, you hear a lot about Julian netball, don't you? But there's a huge amount of senior netball going on out there at people who love playing every single week and, you know, play throughout their lives. And this was reflected really in our applications. So, we had 54% applicants from under 18s and 46% from over 18s. So, pretty even split there. And it meant that we could really help everyone playing netball by taking netball across the age spectrum. - You mentioned trainers there, but what were some of the other items you were able to provide? - The trainers were, by far and away, the most requested items. So, we had 79% of our items that we provided were trainers. But the next biggest request really was club fees. And so, obviously, clubs have to charge fees to play in additional clubs and netball leagues because of just, you know, the cost of hiring sports halls and buying equipment and all of those kind of things. So, it's really a key part of community sport, but it does mean that there's a bit of a barrier to people participating in a club or a league setting. And we had 18% of our applicants' request that we supported their club fees. And so, we did that and we paid their clubs directly to enable them to carry on playing in their clubs and that leads. - It was an idea of the overall spread of various throughout Wales. Good mix? - It was a good mix in the end, you know. This is something that we didn't have any control over at all. We really wanted to be able to help the whole of Wales. And so, what we did is we tried to make sure that we were marketing and advertising this as far and wide as possible. And there's many different formats, you know, via our membership emails, but over our socials. We even went out through some of our trusted partners. So, we are street games to send this out to those who they know partake in sport in their community, just to really get the broad area across Wales. And that's what we saw. So, every region of Wales had that had people applying, which was great, and some of the more deprived areas had high numbers of people applying, which is what we expected to see and we're pleased about that. So, for example, we had a 140 applicants in the Glamorgan Valley's, which is well known for in a lot of areas, you know, being quite deprived. So, it's brilliant that we could help in the right spots. But, as I said, all over Wales, that depends on all over Wales and we help the lengths and the breadth of the country. - And what are some of the feedback you've got so far? - Oh, we've had some brilliant, brilliant feedback from applicants themselves, from mothers of applicants, et cetera, just saying how much of difference it's made to their daughters or themselves to be able to have that equipment and carry on playing, and that they would, you know, definitely not have been able to afford it otherwise and may not have been able to keep up with their netball and that it really helps them feel part of their netball club, their netball community and carry on playing. So, that's been brilliant. - And a bit of luck at ongoing process, maybe your annual thing now. - This is like we would love to do on an annual basis, Andy, but as with most things, it's all completely dependent on fundings. This, we were lucky enough to have a grant from the Welsh government, and we decided that this was a really good cause to allocate that grant to, and that allowed us to do this, you know, I know the numbers are in their hundreds, but the cost was definitely well into it in terms of thousands to do this. So, we would love to do this going forward. We think it's been really valuable and a really great way to help our community netball, but we need the funding. So, if there's any keen partners out there who want to come on board and be community partners of a Welsh netball and help this carry on going forward for the next one, two, three, four years to come, then please do get in touch, drop us an email at Wales netball and we'd love to do this with you and be able to carry on helping those girls and women and netballers across the country. - Definitely something worth doing, Kira. Thank you for your time. - No worries at all, Andy Lovex, speak to you. - The netball show is now also available via Sky HD, Sky Q, and Sky Glass. So, let's export and we're on the podcast's rail. (logo whooshing)
Nia Jones and Jill McIntosh from Cardiff Dragons review their 2023/24 Netball Superleague season