Netball: Aussie meets challenge of building 'nice team'

Julie Fitzgerald says working on self-belief was critical in building a new team. Photo / Christine Cornege

Julie Fitzgerald must have wondered what she had walked into.

No sooner had the veteran Australian coach taken the reins at the Magic than the dominoes began to fall. First Laura Langman, as she does so well on court, shot the gap, followed closely by Irene van Dyk and Jodi Tod-Elliot. By the time the dust had settled, just three players remained from last year's match-day 12.

And all this at a franchise still struggling to find its financial and operational feet after the establishment of a new zone structure.

It took remembering the words of a league coaching legend to steel Fitzgerald for the challenge ahead.

"I read in [Melbourne Storm coach] Craig Bellamy's book that if you worry about the players you've lost, you aren't doing the right thing by the ones you've kept, and that line stuck with me" she said.

"It's certainly a hiccup when you lose a player like Irene van Dyk and Laura Langman. But we quickly put that to the back of our minds, and looked at who we thought might build a nice team."

And build a nice team she has.

They already had a strong defensive platform, having retained Silver Ferns pair Casey Kopua and Leana de Bruin, but beyond that the Waikato-Bay of Plenty side were virtually starting from scratch. With the exception of import shooter Jo Harten, they were forced to pull together a group of players from around the country who were either unwanted, or not considered high-priority signings at their previous franchises.

No one gave this mish-mash group much hope of achieving anything but the wooden spoon this year. Five rounds in, the unbeaten Magic look like New Zealand's only hope of winning the transtasman league title after the star-studded Mystics and Pulse sides faltered in the opening rounds.

The Magic's ability to gel so quickly can be put down to the Fitzgerald factor. She worked hard to create a gameplan to suit the team's collective strengths and, with her insistence no corners are cut at any point in the team's training and preparation, has developed the new-look Magic side into a slick, well-drilled unit.

"We're training a little bit differently and I have a different approach to the game than perhaps they've had before," she says.

"I'm very big on speed and agility ... My training sessions could be a little bit shorter than others but they're very intense. You come, you work very, very hard and then you leave. I try and replicate training being as close to a match as I can get it."

Off the court, Fitzgerald says she has worked hard at developing a culture in the team where they have the belief they can overcome anything. This new attitude was evident in the Magic's first trip to Australia last month, when they toppled the Vixens in Melbourne having taken a no-excuses approach into the match.

A keen student of how successful clubs in other codes operate, Fitzgerald has spent a lot of time with league and AFL clubs in Australia, getting an insight into what makes a winning culture. Since arriving at the Magic, she's also had the opportunity to get a look inside the Chiefs' operations as well.

"Building a strong team culture is really important to me. There's a tremendous spirit in this team, they really have got each other's back on and off court. And that's something you can't buy or train into them."

Just as many of her players have points to prove, Fitzgerald too must, at least in part, be driven to succeed at the Magic after being dumped as NSW Swifts coach at the end of the 2011 season. It was a move she says she saw coming, but having guided the Swifts since 1997 (in the old domestic league), taking her teams to the finals every year bar one over that time, many were shocked with the way the veteran coach was treated.

Fitzgerald though, handles any questions over her departure from the Sydney side diplomatically. "My standard line is I coached a team for 15 years and you can't be disappointed if they want a change," she says.

After a short stint as assistant coach of the Diamonds, Fitzgerald took over the under-21 programme at the Australian Institute of Sport. Changes in funding priorities meant her gig at the AIS was cut to a part-time role around the same time as the Magic coaching role came up. She had always wanted to be involved in the ANZ Championship again, and thought coaching in New Zealand would be the right challenge for her at this time in her career.

Perhaps exercising her diplomacy skills again, she says she's a big fan too of the Kiwi way of life and is loving her new rural lifestyle in Cambridge.

It also helps when the Magic are performing so well on the court. But while aware talk of the Magic being premiership contenders is building, Fitzgerald is wary of lumping her side with any more pressure.

"When we came together everything was so new. The players were new, I was new, even with still setting up the zone, things were new here. I tried very hard not to have expectations beyond the next week, and I'm still in that mindset."