Australia captain Sharelle McMahon recovered from knee injury

February 09, 2009 By Melissa Woods - AAP

THERE is still plenty of life in the career of Australian netball captain Sharelle McMahon, who's raring to go after recovering from knee surgery.

The 31-year-old went under the knife last August, forcing her out of Australia's drawn series with New Zealand and series win over England.

While she enjoyed her role as a sideline commentator, she says she has no retirement plans and is preparing to lead the Melbourne Vixens in the trans-Tasman competition starting in April.

"I quite enjoyed doing the commentary side of things but I think that was more because it gave me something else to focus on rather than just being a spectator," McMahon told AAP.

"I've got some goals but they just depend a bit on how I pull up and if I can to a certain time and I've had enough than that's when I'll call it a day.

"But at the moment it's a really exciting time in netball and I'm loving being involved as a player still."

McMahon is looking to lead the Diamonds in the inaugural World Netball Series, which involves the world's top six nations in an abbreviated form of the game.

Held in October in Manchester, England, matches will be played over four, six-minute quarters with innovations such as shooting permitted outside the circle and power plays.

McMahon said she would take a wait-and-see approach, but at this stage wouldn't like any drastic changes to the regular game.

"The sport of netball hasn't really explored those things before so it will be interesting to see how that all comes together," she said.

"I've never in my career experienced any alterations to the rules at all.

"If it works, that's great and it's potentially something they could look at bringing into the main game.

"I probably wouldn't like to see it changed too fundamentally, like the shooting outside of the circle."

With McMahon battling knee problems the Vixens faded to finish fourth in the inaugural ANZ series after starting the season among the favourites.

She predicted the side would improve on that ranking despite losing under-21 player of the year Madison Browne and utility Jo Curran, who have both moved to Perth, while Abby Sargent retired.

"Obviously we wanted to get further in to the finals series than we did but we went through some challenges as a group, bringing players from the Phoenix and the Kestrels together," she said.

"This year we've got a really good base from last year and unfortunately we've lost a couple of good players but we've replaced them really well so we're feeling confident"

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