Netball: Jury's out but verdict is a return to court soon

Ellen Halpenny is part of a settled Kia Magic squad for 2015. PHOTO/ FILE

Willowy schoolgirl defender Kelly Jury is the bolter in an otherwise settled Magic squad for the 2015 ANZ Championship netball competition.

Raised on a Stratford farm, the 1.92m Jury is in her last year at New Plymouth Girls High School, and will link with 11 players returning from last year's Waikato/Bay of Plenty team which finished third.

Jury, 17, attended a Netball New Zealand national development camp late last year and has been selected with an eye to the future.

Overwhelmed to be selected, Jury's delight was overshadowed a day later when she ruptured an Achilles tendon playing in the Taranaki Club Premier finals last night.

"The contract was signed, sealed and delivered one day and she tore an Achilles the next but we're confident her rehab will be good and she'll be back training with the team early next year," Magic coach Julie Fitzgerald said.

"I was on the look out for young tall defenders for the future and they're a real rarity. Kelly is quite tall, she's had very little experience to date and will probably take a while to develop. But we have to look to the future we can't keep relying on our defence end [Leana de Bruin, Casey Kopua] to always be there for us."

Jury is set to start her tertiary education at Waikato University next year.

Losing just two players, shooter Brooke Leaver to Southern Steel and defender Catherine Coffin to Northern Mystics, Fitzgerald is welcoming the opportunity of working with a familiar and settled group in her second year at the helm.

"We had a lot of changes at the beginning of this year and we brought in a lot of young ones, now it's time for them to consolidate and for us to get the benefits of the improvement that they've shown," she said.

"It takes years to build really good combinations and the less change you can have in a team, the better."

Magic has a strong representation in next month's trials for the 2014-15 Silver Ferns squad with eight of the 26 - Leana de Bruin, Ellen Halpenny, Casey Kopua, Malia Paseka, Jamie-Lee Price, Grace Rasmussen, Courtney Tairi and Jo Trip - getting the nod.

Teams for next year's transtasman competition can carry a maximum of 12 players.

Magic squad

Leana de Bruin, Ellen Halpenny, Jo Harten, Kelly Jury, Casey Kopua, Bessie Manu, Malia Paseka, Jamie-Lee Price, Grace Rasmussen, Sam Sinclair, Courtney Tairi, Jo Trip.