In a year when most major New Zealand sports teams almost did really well, one went that step further and ended their journey as world champions: The Silver Ferns. Leading them was Anna Rowberry, who four years earlier had been in the team that lost the final to Australia inthe last few seconds and in 2000 had been tossed on to the international scrap-heap.
"I guess it just shows what a bit of determination and will to keep going can do," she tells Weekend Sport today. That it does.
Criticised for playing too fast and loose, Rowberry fought her way back into the team after 15 months in the wilderness, and under new coach Ruth Aitken was given the captaincy. Despite struggling with a calf strain throughout the tournament in Jamaica, she was leading from the front in the final as the Ferns beat Australia 49-47.
The 27-year-old says the key to the Ferns' success was preparation, and she cut back to part-time work for six months before the championships to allow more time to train.
While off-field behaviour remains an issue in other codes, Rowberry is a role model every parent can endorse. A teacher by profession, she still sacrifices personal time to work with children. In September she told Kawerau College students, "if you want something you have never had you need to be prepared to do something you have never done". This year she fulfilled that maxim.
