NETBALL
When things aren't working - change everything.
That seems to have been the philosophy of this year's Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic team heading into the 2010 ANZ Championship, which starts next weekend.
Magic came up short the past couple of seasons and the coach, Rotorua's Noeline Taurua, said that prompted an extensive review.
When Magic face last year's winners Vixens in Melbourne next week they will go in with no real inkling of how they'll stack up.
While in previous pre-seasons Magic have arranged several matches against other franchises, providing a chance to trial combinations and get a bit of a feel for the competition, there have been no encounters against other ANZ teams this time.
Taurua is upbeat but said only time would tell if the changes were a good thing or not.
"We've been very internal in our preparation in the build-up to this season.
"The only gauge we've had so far is ourselves but I'm hoping that's going to be a good thing. Instead of comparing ourselves with others and looking to others to assess what level we're at, we're looking at ourselves and pushing ourselves," she said.
When Magic assessed the impact which previous pre-season games had had, they found the games "didn't really have any effect".
Taurua said the franchise had looked at "everything".
"We looked at how we've done things in the past and asked how effective it had been and whether we had been doing things just for the sake of it because we figured that's how it was done.
"We decided maybe it was time to change so we looked right across the board."
This season has been broken down into three stages, instead of looking to the finals and "just going hard, hard and harder and hoping all the planning comes together at the end of the day".
Last season it didn't all come together. The Silver Ferns-laden Magic failed to make the final and it doesn't rest easy with Taurua.
"We were not happy with the 2009 season ... we underachieved."
Now the former Silver Fern is hoping the changes made heading into this season will translate into success on the court.
"Many things have been changed so we've no real benchmark going into the competition this year."
Does the coach think that the changes will see things turn around this year?
"There is a bit of anxiety about that because we won't really know until we hit our first game but more than that, there's excitement."
The "internalising" of the pre-season preparations had seen Magic form into a "very strong, tight unit" and the change of chemistry brought about by player gains and losses had also brought renewed excitement, Taurua said.
"We feel we're tracking well."
However, that's not to say there's not plenty more work to be done between now and next weekend's first round.
"We're now just clarifying court strategies and the bigger picture is starting to become clearer," Taurua said.
"Then we need to work backwards on skills and the basics that feed into those strategies and then we start looking at the opposition - so there's still a lot to be done."
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