Bueta-powered Diamonds headed for surprise Comm Games netball final match-up, says Sharelle McMahon

McMahon, the flag-bearer from Delhi in 2020 and a quadruple Commonwealth Games and World Cup champion, is in Birmingham as a general team manager and Australian assistant chef de mission under Petria Thomas.

The second most-capped Diamond likes the depth and versatility of Stacey Marinkovich’s squad; although the injury cloud has since darkened over midcourter Paige Hadley, who played barely 15 minutes in the opening two rounds before aggravating her calf problem in the second quarter against South Africa.

“What I like about this team is just the strength the whole way across the court,’’ says McMahon, who won Commonwealth gold in Kuala Lumpur (1998, on debut) and Manchester (2002, scoring the winning gold in double-overtime) and silver in Melbourne (2006) and Delhi.

“These are players who, every single one of them, are playing in the best netball competition in the world every single week. I think that is a massive positive for the Diamonds. And I think the flexibility in the group will hold them in good stead, as well.’’

The Australians are yet to be truly tested, though, with round games against Barbados (ranked 12th), Scotland (8th) and South Africa (5th) producing an average winning margin of almost 52 goals ahead of Wednesday’s clash with No.9 Wales.

Which is almost certain to leave the battle of the unbeaten Group A teams to decide the semi-final crossover fixture against either England or New Zealand; although McMahon would not be surprised if Australia and Jamaica — with a current average winning margin of 42 goals — end up playing off for gold, as well.

“The Diamonds are the favourites; that’s certainly the case in my mind, and from what I’ve seen and heard the defensive unit is operating very, very well at the moment,’’ McMahon says.

“Some people say that defence wins championships; Bianca [Chatfield] is a serial offender. I do say to Bianca, ‘You could take 1000 intercepts and if the goalers aren’t shooting the goals, you’re not winning!’

“So there is that element of it as well, but what I do think is that having a good defensive unit can set the tone. If you’re an attacking end that looks down at a defensive unit which is doing really well and turning ball over, in a strange way it relieves the pressure because you know that if there’s an error that they’ve got every chance of getting it back.

“So it can have an impact on the way the attacking end operates, which is really important and I think they just grow off that and continue to grow their confidence.’’

As for the world No.1’s greatest danger for gold, McMahon is leaning towards an impressive squad of Sunshine Girls headed by Jhaniele Fowler and Shamera Sterling, who led a 103-24 thrashing of Barbados on day four.

“I wonder if Jamaica might make it this time,’’ McMahon says. “They’ve got such good bookends and then it will just be that midcourt, to see if they’ve got the robustness to stand up to a week of really tough international netball, and be playing really well and physically able to contend with the Diamonds in the end.’’

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Australian netball’s greatest-ever shooter does not invite comparisons with the current standout, but there have been few more athletic Diamonds in history than the explosive 177cm McMahon and the remarkably mobile 191cm aerialist Gretel Bueta; the latter having dominated so far in her Commonwealth Games debut.

McMahon’s long-time circle partner, Cath Cox, admits she would watch in awe the Victorian’s rare elevation and speed, combined with a fiercely competitive mindset and ability to deliver in clutch moments in major events.

“All the time. All the time. ALL the time!’’ laughs Cox, now a commentator. “Just amazing, and I’ve seen some photos of Sharelle that were taken in the middle of a game and you think, ‘Oh, my God, she’s just one of those freaky players’.

“And I reckon Gretel Bueta is as much of an athlete if not more, but kind of hasn’t been tested in those big pressure moments.’’

McMahon, 44, leaves those judgments to others, while modestly denying she sees any similarities between herself and the player named Quad Series MVP in January in her first international series; spent mostly at goal shooter, following a Queensland Firebirds career spent almost exclusively at goal attack.

“No - absolutely not!’’ McMahon says. “She’s a supreme athlete. I could not even in any way compare myself to Gretel. She’s amazing.

“She’s much taller than you expect and she just has this great presence and ability to play across both positions which is a massive strength for the Diamonds, there’s no question about that, and I think she can play that target at goal shooter if that’s the style of game that Stacey and Nic [assistant coach Richardson] decide to go with, because she has the ability to play that role as well.

“Obviously she’s super-athletic, that’s a massive part of her game, and she will draw the attention of the defensive units because they need to find a way to shut her down.

“And therein lies the challenge for the other players around her: that if that is happening, that they have the ability to step up into that space. I’ve seen them do it, so I’ve got every confidence that they can.’’

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McMahon signed off last August from a netball lifetime as a player [118 Tests, 12 as captain, plus six domestic premierships during 216 games for the Phoenix/Vixens] and eight years of specialist/assistant coaching roles.

Cricket Victoria’s head of female cricket will soon become the fifth female athlete to have a statue in her honour in Victoria (joining 29 men and, oddly, three racehorses), when immortalised in bronze in Melbourne’s sporting precinct outside John Jain Arena.

Denied the chance to overtake Liz Ellis on Australia’s all-time games list by an Achilles tendon rupture in 2011, the long-serving McMahon does not regard the Diamonds’ relative lack of international experience — an average of 25 caps, compared with England’s 77, for example — as a major impediment, considering the standard and intensity of Super Netball, in which all 12 squad members compete.

Yet half of both the Jamaican and England teams in Birmingham also call Australia’s domestic league their other netball home. McMahon admits that GS is the position most impacted by the unlimited import rule introduced six years ago.

“That’s the reality because a lot of teams have imports playing in the goal shooter position, so I think for the Diamonds that’s one of the things that they need to keep working through.

“I like the import rule and I think maybe this is me a step removed from the high performance program at the Diamonds, but I think if you take a more broad look at it for international netball, having strength across the different nations is really important.’’

McMahon’s Comm Games general team manager role for Australia extends beyond netball to include badminton, tennis, weightlifting and boxing, with Thomas mentioning her Delhi honour, as the first member of a team sport to carry the flag at an opening ceremony, at the recent flag-raising function.

A talented junior in hurdles, high jump and triple jump, McMahon addressed the Australia women’s cricket team before its departure for Birmingham, and one suspects that had the almost-Ash Bartyesque athlete not competed at four Games as a netballer, she would have been elite in another sport. Or two.

Bueta, indeed, played in three junior world championships as a basketballer before switching to netball in 2012 and, at 29, the mother of toddler Bobby is in career-best form.

Four years ago, both the former star and the current one were spectators when England gatecrashed the longstanding trans-Tasman duopoly with a famous one-goal upset of Australia at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

“What an awesome contest it was,’’ says McMahon. “I just think for international netball and for netball certainly over here, it’s a really well-loved sport over here and I don’t know that it was always that when I was playing.

“I’ve seen a shift in that, and I do think the result on the Gold Coast had a big role to play in that. So without my Aussie hat on, that’s good for the sport over here in the UK, that’s for sure.

“The netball tickets are the hottest property. There’s a really great energy in the stadium and on the ground here the people are just really excited about netball and wanting to watch the Roses do their thing.’’

Against Australia, potentially, in the semi-finals, although if McMahon’s instincts prove correct, it might just be Jamaica’s chance to upset the long-established world order next.