Bianca Chatfield: Team Girls Cup reveals Super Netball’s new flavour plus an early Diamonds bolter

But pre-season games are important, whether the players admit it or not.

Often it’s the first real exposure to teams that have had line-up changes, or are giving court-time to lesser-known training partners, so it helps to build awareness that will be useful when the official season starts.

For coaches, it’s even more valuable because they get to test out and really hone their go-to combinations against Super Netball teams, rather than in intra-club matches or against a men’s team, for example, back home.

I think the new SSN flavour is versatility, which the weekend’s two finalists, West Coast Fever and Adelaide Thunderbirds, have in spades.

Both those teams were very impressive — and everybody else was either heavily depleted by injuries or just played a lot of their kids.

The team that wins the 2023 SSN title, if Fever doesn’t go back-to-back as many people expect, will be one that has plenty of options and a whole lot of depth.

At the other end of the ladder, it’s going to be a tough season for the Firebirds. Without their pregnant superstar Gretel Bueta, it’s hard to see how they will compete with the best. They will get better under new coach Bec Bulley, but they just don’t have the experience right now to take on the big guns.

The Magpies and Giants are both a bit of a mystery. You could say that they didn’t have a great tournament, but you could also say they’d lost a lot of players.

So although I don’t really know where they’re going to sit come the regular season, we now have a gauge on where some of the other teams are sitting ahead of round one.

Distinctions

ADELAIDE THUNDERBIRDS

Yes, we were talking-up the T-birds this time last year, too, but there is a different aura about them in 2023.

They look very fit, and they just look like a really happy team. The energy on and off the court is what makes me feel a lot more positive about Adelaide this season as they try to break that long finals drought.

Given their scoring issues last year, English recruit Eleanor Cardwell brings the grit that they needed in attack; someone who’s going to rip the ball in and fire up when things aren’t working.

At some stages she was playing as a holding shooter, with Tippah Dwan or Georgie Horjus out the front; other times she was at goal attack with Lucy Austin at shooter – and sometimes Dwan and Horjus, the two littlies, were on together using the speed they have to burn.

Coach Tania Obst has these options now. More weapons. We know she loves changes, so it’s about making those changes at the right times.

We also know circle defenders Shamera Sterling and Latanya Wilson win more ball than any other combination but on the Gold Coast, Matilda Garrett was really good, too.

We don’t notice Garrett as much because we’re constantly talking up the Jamaicans, but she looked fitter than she ever has and was really turning the ball over, rather than relying on Sterling to collect the intercepts.

Captain Hannah Petty had a great 2022, so will bring something else to think about in the wing defence position when she’s back from injury.

There’s been so much promise from the Thunderbirds without any delivery at the serious end of the season. Now I really feel it’s their time to shine.

WEST COAST FEVER

As brilliant as the premiers were in 2022, it’s now even harder to find a chink in their armour.

What must be a concern for their rivals is that it’s not The Jhaniele Fowler and Courtney Bruce Show any more.

Even adding Nat Butler (nee Medhurst) when Fowler was off the court, they did not miss a beat. It was Glasgow and Butler who shot the lights out in the last quarter of the final.

There’s been a lot of talk about Nat’s comeback at the age of 39, after having her second child. She showed everybody she can still play.

And it’s probably not so much what Nat does herself — yes, she can still shoot, and she can nail a Super Shot — but it’s her craftiness out the front. She can take defenders away to allow so much space for the other attackers, and that’s the stuff that doesn’t get recorded in stats but that’s what Nat’s still got.

It will be interesting if and when there’s no spot for her in the 10. Will other teams come looking, now that they’ve seen Butler at Team Girls Cup?

If anyone has an injury to a shooter and lacks experience among their training partners, then of course they will. They’d have to. I expect to see Nat throughout Super Netball. Ideally, she will get an opportunity at Fever but if not, I wouldn’t be surprised if other teams come sniffing.

West Coast is also injecting youth through its broader squad with the Cransberg sisters — especially Jordan Cransberg at wing attack, who slotted in seamlessly to Dan Ryan’s structures.

The new face in the contracted 10 is Kim Jenner. It was a risky move for the former Firebirds defender to join a team that was already rock solid, yet Jenner really impressed me, including in the final. She seems to have a new lease of life in the west.

Pass

SUNSHINE COAST LIGHTNING

They’re not exactly where they want to be right now, but you can see so much more promise in the reigning wooden-spooner’s line-up compared with last year.

New coach Belinda Reynolds seems to have really nutted out their game plan and you could see it starting to come into play across the weekend.

They implemented a strong one-on-one defensive style when they needed to, but then they had the ability to switch and to float back in the circle and provide an elusive element which allowed them to go out and take ball.

Reynolds, the former Fever assistant coach, is very strong when she talks to her players. The way she has empowered Kadie-Ann Dehaney at goal keeper and the way the combination is starting to build with Karla Pretorius at goal defence, you actually go, ‘Wow, if that gets firing, you’re going to be able to come up against a Thunderbirds attack end and even a Fever attack end and cause some trouble’.

Dehaney has looked a little bit lost in her time at Lightning after crossing from the Vixens, but she seemed to get what’s needed now. She was willing to take risks, fly at balls; she’s got the confidence because she had the shut-down pressure in front of her.

Charlie Bell has been a great addition in attack in place of the injured Reilly Batcheldor. Bell gives them such a tall option, either with Cara Koenen or Steph Wood out the front, so it’s not just a structure that relies on the two Diamonds frontliners.

The Lightning have options and I think they have the potential to return to the top four. You can see that they’re on the way up. How far up, we shall see.

ROMELDA AIKEN-GEORGE

After 14 seasons and 197 games in Firebirds’ purple, it was very strange to see the league’s newest mum in a red dress.

But the Swifts training partner, who is expected to fill in for Sam Wallace in the first few rounds, had the energy of someone who looked like she wanted to be back out on court.

Towards the end of her Firebirds’ career she was going through the motions, but Aiken-George was strong, she was accurate, and she was moving and playing a more Swifts style of play.

This is a new Romelda and she can easily slot in while we wait for Wallace to return. Briony Akle might even have a tough decision to make when that happens!

At Team Girls Cup, there were prams, kids and babysitters everywhere, which was awesome to see. It’s a new era for netball and for women’s sport, that this is now just what we all know and see.

As well as Butler and Aiken-George, Ali Miller — someone I had not seen before — was impressive for the Swifts. Firebirds training partner Hulita Veve has two children, and Bueta, who is expecting a sibling for toddler Bobby, was on the sidelines in an off-court role.

Fail

PLAYING SCHEDULE

It makes for a massive year when Team Girls Cup is held in February and internationals are still being played in November.

With a demanding Super Netball season and a World Cup in between.

The older, more experienced players are really going to be pushing it to be fit from start to finish. Already, so many people have done their calves. There were corkies. Concussions.

That meant that a lot of the big guns were out, because they can’t sustain playing and it’s not good for them to be playing at that level for three days in a row.

Team Girls Cup is a place to unearth your talent rather than solidify your starting seven, which is probably not great for the tournament itself.

Housby. Mentor. Harten. Garbin. Weston. Parmenter. Brandley. Browne. They were just a few of the big names who appeared only a little or not at all.

So many injuries so early in the year hardly augurs well for what is to come in round one, which is just three weeks away, let alone later in the year.

BASIC SKILLS

It was impossible to overlook the number of ball-handling errors and wayward passes. The level was just not as crisp and sharp as we’ve come to expect from Super Netball.

Yes, you can put a lot of that down to it being pre-season, but I think the next three weeks for quite a few teams will be very much spent focusing on basic skills and getting those right.

Diamonds Watch

Glasgow. Glasgow. Glasgow. She’s Diamond-worthy.

Can play under pressure.

MVP in last year’s grand final. MVP in Team Girls Cup final.

Sasha Glasgow performs on the big stage and now we are seeing the versatility that she can add when Fowler’s off the court, playing shooter as well as goal attack.