Former Mainland Tactix teammates Jane Watson (left) and Te Paea Selby-Rickit are about to play their first season in the Australian netball league. Photo / Photosport
By Bridget Tunnicliffe of RNZ
Te Paea Selby-Rickit did not see it coming.
Last year, the Mainland Tactix shooter received a text out of the blue from former ANZ Premiership coach Kiri Wills, now head coach of the Queensland Firebirds. Wills wanted to sound out the former Silver Fern about a move across the Tasman.
“It was in the middle of the ANZ Premiership season, I didn’t expect it but at the end of [the] Tactix season, the timing felt right,” Selby-Rickit said.
For Selby-Rickit, further surprises awaited when she arrived at the Firebirds set-up in Brisbane late last year – world-class facilities, intense training and a level of professionalism she hadn’t experienced before.
Selby-Rickit is among nine current and former Silver Ferns that will feature in Australia’s Suncorp Super Netball (SSN) when it begins this weekend, with the challenge of testing themselves in the world’s toughest netball league drawing a strong Kiwi contingent across the Tasman.
The 34-year-old will play alongside two Silver Ferns at the Firebirds, with Kelly Jackson and Maddy Gordon also making their SSN debuts. The trio are living together in Queensland.
One of the biggest things players notice when they start playing in Australia is the access to resources and the quality of the facilities.
“I’ve also been blown away actually by the professionalism, the systems they’ve got in place, you can tell it’s just a really high performance environment and the attention to detail and everything,” Selby-Rickit said.
“The intensity is really high here and the standards are really clear, it’s definitely pushed me but that’s what you want and I’ve been here a couple of months now and I feel like I’m finally starting to get used to it.
“At the same time, it still feels fun and connected so I’ve been really impressed and really stoked with how it’s gone so far.”
The experienced goal attack is teaming up with Ugandan goal shoot Mary Cholhok. Standing at 2.0m, Cholhok is the tallest player in the competition and the Firebirds will be wanting to unlock her full potential.
“We’ve been working hard trying to build that connection. I like playing with a tall shooter, I’ve played with tall shooters before with Jhaniele [Fowler-Nembhard] back in my Steel days and Ellie Bird at Tactix so I’m really excited about how that connection can grow.”
Former Silver Ferns skipper Gina Crampton is also about to enter her first season in the SSN. She had a taste of it in 2024 as a training partner for the Giants.
After taking time away from the court last season to have a baby, the specialist wing attack will take up a fulltime role with the New South Wales Swifts, alongside Silver Ferns shooter Grace Nweke.
It was Nweke who essentially forced Netball New Zealand to revisit its eligibility rules when she joined the Swifts last year. Previously, only players plying their trade in the New Zealand competition were eligible for national selection. But when the prolific shooter elected to take up a contract with the Swifts, the national body subsequently loosened its rules, which saw six players apply for and be granted exemptions to still be able to play for the Silver Ferns.
The last time Crampton played with Nweke was at the 2023 Netball World Cup in Cape Town, before Crampton made herself unavailable for international netball.
“It’s really nice having someone I know well coming into it but also she’s just such a huge person in the game at the moment and she’s just an amazing player so getting to feed her has been really awesome,” Crampton said.
While players in the SSN have enjoyed pay increases and access to world-class facilities, their counterparts in the ANZ Premiership face a different reality.
This year, players agreed to a 20% pay cut after Netball New Zealand was forced to rein in the costs of the competition after its broadcast revenue took a massive hit before the 2025 season.
With no long-term broadcast deal in place beyond 2026, uncertainty continues to hover over the domestic competition.
“I’m sure that Netball New Zealand is doing everything they can to keep the competition running and having something solid back home. You want all the players to be able to get as much support as they can and not having to work on the side as well, that’s what we’d all be aiming for in terms of trying to be an elite environment and getting into that professional space,” Crampton said.
Just how well-resourced the SSN is in comparison to New Zealand’s domestic competition was obvious to Crampton from day one.
“That’s huge, I think there’s not much difference from coach to coach but just the resources and facilities and things that are available is definitely a step up.
“Just having your own changing room at the one stadium that you train at. At the Stars, we sort of travelled all round South Auckland training at different venues and things like that.”
Crampton is excited to see how her old New Zealand teammates go in the league. Cross-town Sydney rivals the Giants have signed former Silver Ferns Whitney Souness and Jane Watson.
“I’m quite close with Jane and excited to see how she goes. I’m sure she’s someone who was probably thinking she was getting near the end of her career and then this opportunity with the Giants showed up so I think it’s awesome to see we’ve got a few Kiwis in the competition and I think it will bring a bit of flair to the league, hopefully,” Crampton said.
Watson said playing in the SSN had always been a goal of hers.
“When we had our old transtasman competition, you’d always come over here and get a little bit of a taste of it, that was always something I thought would be amazing to do, I just didn’t think I’d ever get the opportunity to do it,” Watson said.
Watson, who won the ANZ Premiership title with the Tactix last year, said SSN players had what they needed at their fingertips.
“If I compare it to our Tactix facility, there’s definitely a lot more things to offer over here, pretty much everything is in one area but then you’ve got your recovery as well, you’ve got a cafe so you can have your lunch and then come back and do your next session, so it’s definitely very well set up over here.”
When it comes to routine and attention to detail, Watson said some things were different.
“The likes of our footwork and agility drills we do at the start of trainings and things, that is one thing that stands out for me.”
Souness was named Giants captain last month and said she was thrilled to have the backing of her new teammates so soon after joining the franchise.
The former Silver Fern is excited by the new challenge and eager to play against other import players from the likes of England, Jamaica and South Africa.
“Being part of the ANZ for a long time, you just want to experience that competition and the SSN is obviously a competition we all look up to and getting to play some international players weekly, it challenges our game so it was always something that I looked at as a great opportunity to grow and further my game. It had been something I had been wanting to do for a while,” Souness said.
Souness, who is hoping to force her way back into the Silver Ferns, has played wing attack most of her career, but could also see some time at centre.
“I’m not sure, we’ve got a couple of us in the midcourt that can play both so I feel like it could be either wing attack or centre, I’ve been playing both at the moment so I guess it’s dependent on the combos and the teams we come up against.”
*Have been granted an exemption
– RNZ