Down to business for netball boss

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

Shelley McMeeken, the new boss at Netball New Zealand, wants to take a good hard look at how the Australians got it right snatching the world title off the Silver Ferns.

McMeeken, a former under-21 international, will take over as CEO from Alastair Snell, who is leaving next month after seven years in the job.

As well as a successful business career, McMeeken has the sporting pedigree - not only from her own broad netball career. Her mother Linley (nee Archer) was a Silver Fern, her uncle Robin Archer was an All Black and her sister Jane captained New Zealand in basketball.

McMeeken first represented her province at netball when she was at Gore High School and played for Southland, Otago and Auckland, as well as the New Zealand under-21 team in 1978. She also competed to a high level in athletics and basketball.

The Silver Ferns' one-goal loss to the Australians a month ago still looms large over the sport. It's a subject McMeeken wants to immediately take something from.

"We have to learn from what Australia does better than us," she said. "Losing the final had nothing to do with our players' skills. The Australians had an ability to lift themselves, and maybe that's something they learned from their institutes."

She believes netball has to take advantage of the New Zealand Sports Foundation's new high performance centres of excellence.

One of McMeeken's first roles is to help in the selection of the New Zealand coach for 2000.

She will bring plenty of business nous to the job. McMeeken moved from teaching to concentrating on sales and marketing roles in multi-national companies. She won various international awards with Schwarzkopf and has been marketing manager of Price-waterhouse Coopers before taking on her new role.

Since her playing days, she has kept in touch with netball as vice-president of Auckland, and been a board member for the Auckland Diamonds franchise and the International Federation of Netball Associations marketing committee.

"I still believe the whole value of netball is in the heartlands. I think we need to invest in the regions, not tax them," she said.

"I feel women's sport globally is really edging forward - with the women's world soccer cup, the women's basketball NBA and a resurgence in women's tennis. We've got to take this women's sport and continue moving it forward."