The rare reinvention of Alice Teague-Neeld: How former GA prodigy became a champion WA

Alice Teague-Neeld — an Australian Fast5 representative and fourth in the West Coast best and fairest while playing goal attack the previous season — would start at wing attack.

Things clicked, almost instantly.

Fast forward just a handful of months later and before an ecstatic capacity crowd at Perth Arena, Teague-Neeld’s 88th game across three clubs was as a Fever premiership player, wearing by then the more familiar letters WA.

It was an outcome few would have forecast during a decorated junior shooting career that led to Teague-Neeld’s debut for the Melbourne Vixens at the age of just 17, a move to Collingwood for the inaugural Super Netball season, then to Perth two years later for what, controversially, ended up being a straight swap for Diamonds great Nat Medhurst.

Yet so successful has Teague-Neeld’s reinvention been that Ryan rates the 26-year-old as — along with West Coast’s consistent midcourter Jess Anstiss — one of the league’s most underestimated players.

“Alice is a very good athlete in terms of her strength and her timing and her power, but nothing beats her brain,’’ says Ryan, another product of the fertile Geelong netball region.

“She’s one of the smartest, most creative players that I’ve worked with, and I’ve just loved seeing her own that part of her game and actually bring it to life every single time she steps out on court.

“Alice has loved the transition into wing attack, she’s still keeping her hand in at goal attack and doing some brilliant stuff there in our training environment, and she’s certainly thriving at the moment and has in the past 12 months.

“And I love seeing that in an athlete who historically has struggled a little bit with confidence and those types of things. It’s great to see her best attributes on display and be really important for how our team operates.’’

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Teague-Neeld can laugh that her first season at the Vixens was something of a culture shock. One of the hottest talents throughout the Victorian pathway, a former national 17/U championship MVP and Australia’s World Youth Cup vice-captain suddenly wasn’t the best player in this new team.

Match minutes: few.

The Collingwood experience from 2017-18 was unexpectedly difficult, for different reasons; her struggles manifesting in a reluctance to shoot and almost inevitable mid-game summons to the bench.

“Both years we didn’t do as well as everyone had hoped for, including players, and the expectations from everybody else, and it was a challenging couple of years,’’ Teague-Neeld admits.

“There were periods in that where I really did not like my netball and wasn’t enjoying it, and I know when I’m playing my best I love netball, I love going to training and I want to be there, and game day’s the best day of the week.

“Whereas there was a moment in my career that that was just not happening.’’

At times, it even crossed Teague-Neeld’s mind that she might be done with the sport she had played so well for so long. Only to soon realise that was easier to say than to follow through with, for life without netball was an unpalatably foreign concept.

“The more I thought about it, it kind of hit me being like, ‘No, I want this, I want to work harder and I want to get to where I want to be, and I want to get over this little challenge and everyone has them’.’’

At the Vixens – where she was first called up as a temporary replacement player while still at school, won a contract in 2015, played 15 games and drew comparisons with a young Sharelle McMahon before being poached by the Pies – Teague-Neeld tended to bottle things up, lest her emotions be seen as a sign of weakness.

By the end of her unhappy stint at Collingwood, it was clear that it would help to talk.

It was also natural to have second-guessed herself and wonder how differently it might have turned out had she stayed with the establishment Victorian club, where she still counts the likes of defender Emily Mannix among her close friends.

“I was obviously still quite young, so the thought of, ‘Oh, what would have happened if I’d stayed’ definitely crossed my mind,’’ she concedes.

“But to be honest, I’m so glad that I’m happy with how my career panned out and my journey, because I think if you don’t go through those things you’re not learning as much.

“I’ve learnt so much over the last few years and over the last eight or nine years, and I think that’s what it’s about. You’ve got to go through the ups and downs to come out on the other side, and be a better person, be a better athlete. Definitely.’’

Yet she doesn’t blame the early hype for expectations not immediately met, given that, while still a youngster playing purely for the love of it, she was barely aware they existed.

Teague-Neeld has multiple sounding boards now, too, including the club performance psychologist Jodii Maguire, family members including dad Mark Neeld, the 74-game Geelong and Richmond footballer and 2012-13 Melbourne coach, plus friends and Fever teammates, among them Anstiss and Emma Cosh.

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Teague-Neeld did not expect her move to Perth for the 2019 season would solve everything, but — accompanied by partner Tom O’Halloran, who would join WAFL club West Perth and is now playing at amateur level — it seemed like a good opportunity, personally and professionally.

But nor could she have imagined the kerfuffle that ensued when, soon after her signing, the shock exit of triple world champion Medhurst (now Nat Butler) was announced.

It turned out to be a trade of goal attacks when Medhurst was picked up by the Magpies, but was received in a less than straightforward way. The players themselves were collateral damage, with the support of the club and the young Victorian’s new teammates far warmer than the general reception from the outside.

“I know what the initial reaction of people was going to be because they loved Nat and Nat’s a superstar,’’ Teague-Neeld says.

“I admire Nat’s game and I think she’s an amazing netballer, but I also know that Fever fans loved Nat and obviously (we) play in the same position, so it would have been a completely different ball game if we played completely different positions.

“I obviously had no control over what was happening with that; it just happened to be that timing, so that wasn’t ideal, and learning to just kind of silence the outside noise, and I think I’ve gotten a lot better at that as I get older.

“So it was all a bit out of my control, but that’s OK. That’s sport and that’s life.’’

The irony, of course, being that Medhurst – now a mother-of-two – has returned to the Fever in an official capacity as a 2023 training partner at the age of 39.

“Now I get to learn from her back at Fever, which is great,’’ Teague-Neeld says.

“But yes. I know.’’

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Teague-Neeld recalls saying to her partner Tom before round one last season that she suspected she may be starting at wing attack. “And then I played and loved it and we as a team had such a great game and I was like, ‘I’m excited’.’’

With the transverse line common ground, not shooting is the obvious difference but the attacking instincts are similar and, in Teague-Neeld’s case, natural. The impact, too, was pretty much immediate.

“It just kind of gave me this spring in my step in terms of enjoyment,’’ she says.

“It’s funny … to play seven or eight years at a professional level in one position and then get this opportunity to play something else it’s quite rare. I obviously have a lot to learn in that position and that’s really exciting.’’

The move has also made her appreciate her time at goal attack even more, while playing with what the qualified physiotherapist calls “less fear” and more of the enjoyment and sense of fun that had once waned.

Still, when young kids at clinics ask what her position is, Teague-Neeld has to think about it sometimes before answering, and finds herself saying WA and GA. Both of which she can, does, and probably will still play.

“I’ve only had that one season at wing attack and loved it, so definitely a lot of room for improvement and learning from that, and want to really consolidate my wing attack game,’’ she says.

“But also I know it’s really important to have two positions and it is good for a team, as well … depending on what we need at any certain time, depending on who we’re playing against and if something’s not working and we need to try something else.’’

Which suits Ryan, for the more options the better in the interests of versatility for the 2022 champions. The coach has no doubt that her original habitat at GA will be a “very strong second position” for a flourishing talent who has now made the WA bib her own.

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“I think the wing attack role for Alice brings all of her natural skills to life, because she has the confidence of knowing she can do them exceptionally well,’’ Ryan says.

“So she knows how to read the circle in feeding the ball, she knows how to position herself to get to circle edge, and she understands the importance of being really disciplined with the ball and creating play, so it suits her really really well.

“But in the training environment, she’s shooting like an absolute superstar when she gets in at goal attack and it’s certainly a position that I’m not closing the door on for Alice at all.’’