Netball: Partner's drama tested Tairi before debut

Courtney Tairi. Photo / Dean Purcell

As far as initiations go, it's hard to imagine one tougher than Courtney Tairi's into the Silver Ferns.

The Ferns wing attack, who played in the first three Constellation Cup tests in the current series, was as apprehensive as you would expect ahead of her first New Zealand training camp in early August.

But as she was on the flight into camp, she had to wrestle with the thought that her long-time partner, Melbourne Storm rugby league centre Maurice Blair, might have sustained a broken neck.

She had been watching the Storm play Canberra in the Melbourne airport departure lounge when Blair was left prone on the turf after his head was driven into the ground in a tackle. The sickening incident looked season-ending - and possibly career-ending.

"It was pretty horrible watching him get put on a stretcher in a neck brace," remembers Tairi. "It felt like a really long flight to New Zealand because he was taken to hospital and I wasn't sure how he would turn out. But the Storm were really good; when I landed in New Zealand, they already had the hospital updates for me. Everything turned out okay in the end but it was a pretty awful flight, that one."

Tairi still gets nervous watching Blair play but knows it comes with the territory. The pair met in Penrith six years ago, when Blair was at the Panthers. Like the best modern romance, it started in the queue at a taxi rank. "He had seen me a year earlier but wasn't quite confident enough to come and introduce himself," laughs Tairi. "Then when he saw me again - I think it was exactly a year later - he thought 'I will talk to her this time'."

Romance blossomed, as have their careers. Blair, 27, played 48 times for the Panthers before moving to the Storm, where he won a premiership in 2012. Tairi, despite two serious knee injuries, has established herself in the ANZ Championship, first with the Swifts, then the Steel and will play for the Magic next year.

Thanks to dual citizenship, she represented Australia at under-21 level before confirming her allegiance to New Zealand last year.

"Sometimes it is good being with a fellow athlete," says the 25-year-old Tairi. "You have that understanding about the sacrifices that you make and the pressure that you feel. He was really good heading into the first test [in Invercargill]. I was pretty nervous and he had a few little pointers from football that he could give me."

They are as competitive as you would expect, whether it is mini golf, tennis, or training runs around a local park. "We can't help it," says Tairi. "Everything tends to get a bit competitive."

Tairi was only expected to be a Ferns squad player this year but the injury to Camilla Lees and the withdrawal of Liana Leota opened up a spot in the midcourt. It hasn't been an easy transition - she isn't your typical New Zealand wing attack - so it is as much as her team-mates adapting to her style, as about Tairi getting used to international netball.

"I've had to work my game in with their game," says Tairi. "International netball is a lot more physical and faster than I am used to.

"Ball comes down a lot quicker and with so many big bodies out on court, it feels like a little less space so you have to work a bit earlier to find the space."

Tactix centre Shannon Francois performed well in Melbourne on Monday and has the inside running to start tomorrow's final test in Canberra but Tairi will be in the mix again when the Ferns take on Malawi next week.