Selection 'unfair': Ex-Fern

13.11.2008 By ANENDRA SINGH - HB Today

It's not fair on the players in the feeder regions to not have the opportunity to represent their franchise, says former Silver Fern Tanya Dearns.

"I would say if I was in the feeder regions I'd be reasonably disappointed if players from around the country were brought in to make up (Central Pulse)," Dearns, of Napier, told SportToday.

"In fact, if I was a netballer in Wellington and players were brought in from the New Zealand Under-21 squad I'd be pretty disappointed too," she said amid upheaval in the Central Pulse last week.

The franchise's sponsors, Suzuki, have hit the highway in the wake of the resignations of the chairman and chief executive and the sacking of coach Kate Carpenter, her assistant, Annette Pearce, and coaching consultant Jill McIntosh.
 
A new board is in place and there's speculation that former Flyers and current New Zealand under-21 coach Yvette McCausland-Durie, from Manawatu, will lead the revamped Pulse into the second season of the fledgling ANZ Championship early next year.

The Pulse have retained two pivotal off-season acquisitions - Jamaican defender Althea Byfield and Silver Ferns squad shooter Paula Griffin, who is shifting from the Northern Mystics.

Inaugural Pulse players, midcourter Cushla Lichtwark and shooter Jamilah Gupwell are reportedly returning.

Inspirational English defender Sonia Mkoloma is expected to play for the Canterbury Tactix.

Dearns said the entire handling of the Pulse's problems was shambolic and should never have been played out in the media.

"It's been a who said what to who. It should have been held behind closed doors and then a clean statement released at the end of it all," she said.

A former Wellington (Pacific Island Church) PIC defender of the eighties, Dearns (nee Cox) said it was vital for those responsible for taking the team into next year's competition to do away with a "closed shop" approach to holding trials.

Securing a marquee of players such as Byfield, Guptill, Lichtwark and Amber Bellringer was crucial to form the cornerstone of the Pulse squad.

"You then open it up and run a trials with as many people as possible.

"That's how I'd do it. In that way you'd probably have kids turn up who are absolutely brilliant and who you've never seen before," she said.

While money was an issue, Dearns said, the trials could be held during a weekend with money needed only perhaps for the hire of a gymnasium.

If players were not up to standard, she said, at least triallists could go away knowing what they had to work on to achieve the standard required to make the cut.

Because of Carpenter's redundancy and the dearth of funds, Dearns said it would be hard for the franchise to entice a top-notch coach from within the country, let alone from overseas.

Dearns, a former Flyers coach and Eastern administrator who now manages the Napier Golf Club, was also critical of the way players were gravitating towards elite teams such as the Waikato/BOP Magic and the Southern Steel.

Netball New Zealand, she said, would maintain their preference for a hands-off approach but something needed to be done.

"Some players are just thinking of themselves and want only to be part of a winning culture. I'd rather be having court time then sitting on the bench watching someone else filling my position. That's not going to do my netball any good, is it?"

The championship race next year will be a three-horse one between Magic, Steel and Tactix.

All teams named their squads this month but Netball NZ granted the Pulse a 20-day extension.

Carpenter and McIntosh, who has led Australia to two World Cup titles, were conspicuous in their absence when Wellington played Eastern during their Perry Foundation National Championship match in Taradale, Napier, in September.

Despite Eastern's one-sided defeat to their Pulse-heavy opponents, Petra Van Zoelen, Candis Cardie, Danielle Randell and Holly Solomona's performances over the season deserved to have talent scouts present at the match. 
 

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