Irene a world-beater

Silver Ferns coach Ruth Aitken has seen the light.
After doing her best to play down the huge part superb goal shoot Irene Van Dyk played in the national squad's test series win over Australia earlier in the year she has at last recognised that without the South African we'd be pretty much up the creek without a paddle.
Aitken had just watched Van Dyk give yet another of her one-woman shows in Waikato's 62-43 win over Netball North in the national championship first grade final.
And she had to agree that without her New Zealand's shooting ranks would not exactly send shivers down the spine of their arch rivals from across the Tasman.
Van Dyk's statistics in the tournament decider make amazing reading.
In the first quarter she shot 20 goals from 21 attempts to set up a huge 23-8 lead for the Waikato side.
In the second quarter it was a perfect 17 from 17 and she attained perfection in the third quarter as well, chalking up seven from seven there.
The fourth and final quarter saw Van Dyk put up 11 attempts for 10 goals, giving her a match analysis of 54 from 56.
All this despite the fact that like all other opposing teams Netball North's defenders did their very best to get in the face of Van Dyk and unsettle her.
Even when two players were marking her she was totally unfazed, forever finding space for herself and taking in passes which mere mortals wouldn't have even got their hands on let alone kept under control.
It was hardly surprising then that Van Dyk should receive the award for best first grade player.
Indeed if she had been a racehorse she would have made it to the finish even before the others were entering the home straight!
It does not bode well for New Zealand netball though that when a national squad was announced on Saturday night among the shooters named was Southland goal attack Donna Loffhagen, who had been unavailable for the Silver Ferns since 2002 because of her commitments with the national women's basketball squad.
Undoubtedly Loffhagen is a fine player but wouldn't you have thought that enough quality shooters would have come to the fore over the last two years to make her inclusion rather less than the certainty it was when she put herself back in the reckoning.