Tracey Neville
We know we’ve got to play everyone to win and that’s what our aim us.
I know some of our performance staff have gone in to look at hockey, particularly around 2012 – when they won the gold medal. Two of their hockey players, Helen and Kate, really support netball and come in and have done an inspirational talk for our girls. I think it’s more about the centralised programme about trying to create a culture. We’ve done a lot off the court about behaviours of the team, how we want people to see us, how we want to appear on the court – that just showed it. It was guts that got us through that performance.
Geva is so experienced – it’s brilliant to have her at the back – she comes through when we need her. I always joke, she’s not retiring until she gets a gold medal. You talk about people starting to dip at the end of their career, she’s just got better and better, she’s like a fine wine. She’s such a great person to have around on the team as well.
Helen absolutely took the responsibility in that game when she needed it. She’s had some tough times against New Zealand in the past, I was really pleased with her performance.
Geva Mentor
It’s important for us to have that win. We’ve done it the past couple of times but we’ve never actually done it in a major tournament. We mean business and we want to achieve it and go all the way into that gold medal final – we’ve got to beat every team. We knew New Zealand were definitely going to be hurting after that loss to Malawi and we knew they’d have a point to prove. We’re really happy with our performance, there’s obviously still stuff to work on – we weren’t as clinical as we wanted to be but we’re happy with the win.
We’re used to going goal for goal and then having momentum shifts. The number of girls that are playing out in Australia – we have that experience now. We’re collectively able to pull together as a team. It’s exciting netball – exciting for the crowd and for us as a team to be able to hold off when we know New Zealand are coming back at us – it’s character building as a team
