Geva Mentor reveals how Mum’s tough love inspired her to rescale netball’s summit

So she signed, instead, with the inaugural Sunshine Coast Lightning squad, promptly captained them to back-to-back Super Netball titles, was named the league’s MVP and selected in consecutive All Star teams.

The next occasion was last year when, after an ordinary season hampered by a back injury, the almost 37-year-old’s fourth Australian club, the Magpies, again tried to sign Mentor to a shorter deal than she had sought.

The now 216-game veteran eventually got her way and will remain a Magpie until the end of 2023, but it was a bruising episode that left Ash Brazill’s co-captain questioning if she was valued. More of all that later.

Most personal of all, following a slow start to 2022 compounded by a serious pre-season ankle injury, was the surprise critic who called after Mentor’s self-described “absolute shocker” against the Thunderbirds in Round 11.

Her mother, Yvonne.

“I spoke to Mum pretty much straight after the game and she said, ‘Maybe it’s time, you obviously look to do Comm Games but then maybe look at retiring’,’’ Mentor says. “I was like, ‘Great, this is just what I want to hear!’

“Coming from someone in your corner, your network, it hurt, the message, but it probably did what I needed: it gave me that fire in the belly to come out and get back to the standard of netball that I want to put out on court for my teammates.

“Mum, she’s been in my corner all the way and so sometimes I think she says things just to spark the right kind of reaction — and it certainly did.’’

And if it hadn’t?

What if Super Netball’s oldest player and one of its most decorated had finished her 15th season with another couple of stinkers, as the voices of those already wondering whether she had played on for a season too long grew louder, still?

Would self-doubt have really seeded, then?

“I think you’re only human in the sense of these things do come into your mind, but as an athlete you do have that extra sort of strength and you know what you’re still capable of,” Mentor continues.

“Particularly because it’s not just like I go out on a weekend and play; I train during the week and so I know what I can put out on court and I’m coming up against some of the world’s best players and shooters, so I know what I’ve still got in my tank.

“I’d be lying if I said you don’t start to doubt a few things; you acknowledge those thoughts, but you don’t live in it, and that’s kind of the way I like to look at things, rather than just sweep it under the rug or ignore it completely.’’

Magpies coach Nicole Richardson sounds a touch surprised to hear that Mentor shared her Mum-told-me-to-quit story with CodeSports.

“Geva told you that, did she? That kind of rocked her a little bit, to be honest with you, but in saying that that might have been the fire in the belly that she needed to put in her best performance of the season the following week against the Swifts,” Richardson says.

“And Geva’s all about proving people wrong, so good on her for responding the way she did on court.’’

*****

It wasn’t just Yvonne Mentor who was grateful for the Round 12 shot of confidence.

Geva felt reassured, too.

“There’s obviously a lot going on off the court as well as on and I guess as a leader you make sure that everyone else is ticking along, so when you’re not performing on court you feel like you’re letting the side down,’’ she says.

The injuries were unfortunate, Mentor citing the frustrating ankle issue suffered in the Team Girls Cup after a strong pre-season, with her inability to train during the final month and rush to return ahead of schedule contributors to her slow start. That came on top of a brutally difficult and painful previous year with the back issue.

“I don’t know how people with chronic pain survive months, years, of it, because I could see how throwing myself off a balcony was a way to end the pain,’’ Mentor says.

“I didn’t sleep for three weeks, on and off. It was really severe, and then you’ve got that on top of trying to be a leader at a club, trying to be within an elite environment and perform.

“And then when the injury kind of settled a bit, I lost all my nerves down the side of my leg, so I lost my power in my calf and I sort of had to teach myself how to walk and run again.’’

Which is where her experience and court smarts kicked in, by necessity, and while Mentor says her physical incapacity helped to add other elements to her game, her coach has also felt compelled to pull the interchange trigger on one of her stars more often than before.

“If I look to last year there’d be times when I’ve questioned on court whether I’ve needed to take Geva off in terms of the impact that she was having, and not often, but there were times when I did take her off, and then that quarter blew out,’’ Richardson says.

“So even though she might not be having a direct impact with her own performance, just by having her out on court it lifts the playing group around her, and I still think she does have a bit of an intimidating presence, so that’s very important.

“Geva is still capable of winning ball off her own back and her ability to make goalers feel uncomfortable, put them in a position where they really don’t want to be, and then by her positioning and what she does she’s able to set up opportunities for fellow players around her to win ball as well.

“So it doesn’t matter how old you are you can never understate the nous and the experience and how clever she is what she does with her body.’’

More than two decades after making her international debut for the England Roses at just 16, the dual citizen does not resile from the off-court work required to still be competitive in the world’s strongest netball league, having played the first of her 46 games for the Adelaide Thunderbirds in 2008, and been named MVP in the grand final two years later, before moving to the Vixens for six outstanding seasons.

“Geva’s playing in the toughest competition that there is and she’s playing against the best players in the world, and to still be competing and doing that, it is a credit to her, because I know physically there’s a lot of work that goes into being able to get on court,’’ says Simone McKinnis, the Vixens’ 2014 and 2020 premiership coach.

“She loves playing, she loves playing for England, she loves playing in this competition. One of the reasons she left us was because she wanted a longer contract, but it was a tricky year, that changeover year from ANZ to Suncorp. She’s just got wise head and the smarts to simplify her job in some ways.’’

*****

As contract negotiations go, this was one of Super Netball’s more problematic.

The Collingwood captain and club champion in 2019-20. Its highest-profile player. A legend of the sport. One seeking security ahead of her desired international finale at the Commonwealth Games/World Cup — which would be her sixth of each — in consecutive years, who came “very close to” accepting a multi-year deal interstate.

But was coming off her worst season, at 36.

“I’m a mature-aged athlete, a mature-aged person, at the end of this year I didn’t want to be having to uproot and unsettle everything around me, because it doesn’t just involve me, my brother lives with me, too,’’ says Mentor. “So, yeah, it was pretty tough.’’

There were long-standing issues with the now-departed Jane Woodlands-Thompson, then the Pies’ head of women’s sport, although Mentor felt supported throughout the contract process by Richardson and her assistant, Kate Upton.

“There was a time where I felt like I wasn’t valued,’’ says Mentor, who was quarantining in New Zealand with the England team, for whom her 153 Tests are second all-time behind only Jade Clarke.

“I actually had a really good series with the Roses, and I think that just proved to me that I’m not done yet, and it probably gave me a bit of fire in belly to prove not just to my international counterparts but to my club, Magpies, that, ‘Hey, back me in because I’m not done yet and I still have a lot to offer’.

“So it wasn’t the best, I was quite stressed at the time, but like all negotiations with clubs it is an uneasy time, and everyone’s fighting for what’s right. You are, personally, and I know they’ve got an agenda, as well.”

“I obviously wanted to remain at Collingwood, that was my family, and one of the two things I said when I came to Collingwood is I wanted to bring success and I wanted to change the culture, and we’re obviously working very well with the culture, and so success is still on my radar.

“So I didn’t just want to up and leave with what we were starting and where we were going; we’re getting everything into place. However, [feeling valued] was a huge thing for me and I just felt a little bit broken and sad that this one club that I’d devoted so much to couldn’t see that at the time.’’

Richardson, the Diamonds’ assistant coach, was also away while all this was all playing out.

“There was some misunderstanding between the parties in terms of what was actually being offered, and that’s where I probably want to leave that,’’ she says.

“It wasn’t just a one-year [offer’ and ‘that’s it, door’s closed’. There was a discussion around one year and what the second year would look like.

“We have complete faith and respect for Geva and what she’s done for the sport, and I completely value her role at Collingwood football club as part of the netball program both on and off the court, but yeah, it did get really close, and it was a really tough time.’’

Sport is a business, though, requiring care for not just the individuals but the netball operation as a whole, according to Richardson, and a reality Mentor accepts.

“Geva had come off a year with quite a severe back injury and as a 37-year-old so it was trying to find the balance between the right thing for Geva, plus also the right thing for the netball program.

“There was a point there when I spoke to Geva on the phone and I was like, ‘How has it actually got to this point?’ Because she was very very close to going.

“So I’m glad that we were able to keep her at the club. She’s such a role model on and off the court and what she’s given to the sport is just incredible and I think her numbers over the years talk for themselves, really.’’

Of course, there’s another kind of chatter out there, and Mentor can’t help but hear it. Then again, the ex-partner of the oft-maligned AFL Magpie Mason Cox, is grateful that the netball community tends — on the whole —to be more positive and supportive.

“I read a lot of stuff on football and these poor boys get ripped to pieces sometimes, so I think we’re quite fortunate in a sense that yes, there’s gonna be talk, but it’s not as bad as it could be compared to other codes,’’ she says ahead of Monday’s must-win final round against the minor premier Vixens.

Victory would deliver Collingwood its first top-four finish since 2019. A loss would mean percentage will decide things, most likely in favour of the winner of the Firebirds/Swifts game in Sydney on Sunday.

Cool heads will be crucial.

“It does set it up beautifully,’’ says Mentor. “Hopefully the Vixens don’t spoil the party.’’

*****

A premiership player at her three previous clubs, Mentor also played a key role in England’s famous Commonwealth Games gold medal upset in 2018. It scarcely seems like a coincidence that where she goes, success tends to follow.

The 191cm defender was busy winning championships for the Lightning when the Magpies, one of two other new franchises backed by the football codes, started with a clutch of sparkling Diamonds and a supposed championship mortgage in 2017.

The reasons why they have struggled to fulfil their potential in the five seasons since is one of the game’s perennial questions.

“You hear about all sorts of things and then you think, ‘Has it been down to the people? Has it been down to the personnel? Do we need to get some kind of cleansing smoking ceremony in there? Has someone kind of left some bad fish under there?’ I don’t know. We’ve literally thrown it all up there.’’

Mentor believes there has been a cultural and values shift, driven in part by personnel change, that she believes is now almost complete. A championship with Collingwood could not be compared with those she was part of with the T-birds or Vixens or, more particularly, the two at the fledgling Lightning.

But the difficulties of Covid for the past three seasons, after and encompassing during the exits of coaches Kristy Keppich-Birrell and Rob Wright and assorted other challenges, means flag No.5 for Mentor near the end of her grand career would be undeniably sweet.

“I think they each have their own relevance and hierarchy because of the journey and they’ve each been very different,’’ she says.

“I so very much want to bring that success to this club and then beyond that; leave it in a place that the next people come through and it’s a really great club to be part of that’s really nurturing on and off the court.’’

*****

One thing that becomes harder with age is evident during this video interview.

It’s called the demands of life. A busy one.

Mentor has trained at Collingwood in the morning, then completed a primary teaching round for the Bachelor of Education that is almost finished after seven years of part-time study including several deferments, picked up her niece, then squeezed in this chat before taking her sister to a dance class.

“It’s probably your schedule. You take on so much more,” she says. “I look at some of the younger girls who are bored and I’m like, ‘I would love to be bored!’ I’d love to come home and just sit there and watch back-to-back episodes of something or other.’’

Mentor has been open about the toll taken by her divorce from former husband Lachlan Crawford in 2018 and was later in that high-profile relationship with Cox. Asked if she is happy and settled now, personally, well, kind-of.

“Oh gosh! You can put it in [the story], my number and my details, because I’m single,’’ she laughs, “I’ve got to the point where I’m like, ‘Where am I gonna meet anybody, who’s just gonna fit into my lifestyle nicely and myself with them as well?’

“I was married before dating apps really came on the scene so I’ve missed all of that, obviously met Mason, that was great in terms of not having to go on any dating apps, and now I’m still in this predicament now: single, 37, playing sport, busy as ever, and not sure where I’m gonna meet anybody.

“But I guess at the other end of it is that I am so busy that would I have time to be able to put into a relationship? But it would be nice — particularly on those days when you don’t play so well and you just want a hug.’’

After a lifetime in the sport she chose after outgrowing trampolining, the author of a 2020 memoir titled “Leap” has read and heard about athletes struggling to make the transition to post-sporting life while unsure what her own will look like.

Still, her love of camping and off-the grid experiences might provide an early hint. “I’ll probably just go MIA for a while — ‘Geva last seen somewhere in Queensland or NT or rural Victoria or wherever, doing something within the community’. Who knows?’’ she smiles.

“I think the exciting thing, though, is that I’ve basically been winging it since a young age, and I’ve been pretty fortunate where I’ve ended up landing and I’ve made some amazing friends and some amazing networks along the way.

“So, when the time comes, hopefully some doors open and some paths become clearer with what I want to do next.’’