Netball: Coach coy for a change

There's a little bit of mischief in Norma Plummer. Not as much as we'd all like to believe on this side of the Tasman but it's definitely there. This time it's in what she doesn't say.

Asked whether she was surprised Ruth Aitken had brought in a couple of players well into their fourth decade, Tania Dalton and Julie Seymour, to bolster her squad, Plummer is coy.

"I could really answer that one... but I'll be nice," she croaks, apologising for a voice corrupted by laryngitis.

She then laughs, which is the bit most of us have missed ever since her unintended slur on New Zealand women when she called the Silver Ferns a bunch of "scrubbers" (she didn't mean it in the same way we interpret the word but by the time her daughter told her how it was interpreted, it was too late to do anything but ride out the storm).

She knows the picture painted of her here and seems quite amused by it, reciting a story running in New Zealand earlier in the week when she had supposedly "raised an eyebrow" over Dalton's selection.

"I don't know how they knew that over the phone," she jokes. "I found that pretty funny."

Then she gets serious.

"Each coach has to sum up the situation. I mean I brought [35-year-old] Nat Avellino back and that was for all the right reasons."

Plummer, you suspect, gets a bit of a kick about winding up her transtasman neighbours. The problem has been that she hasn't had a lot of on-court success to back up her words but she's hoping Sydney might have changed all that.

That was the game back in July, after New Zealand had comfortably won the first test in Brisbane, when you felt the Silver Ferns' grip on world domination loosen just a little.

Starting without pillars Irene van Dyk and Vilimaina Davu, New Zealand were awful early and never recovered. As far as psychological battles go, this was significant.

"Any win like that is a boost. There were a few things laid on the table before that test.

"We know New Zealand would have looked at that game and felt they underperformed but I don't care who they started with, I think we would have won."

For the first time in two years, Plummer says Australia are injury free and capable of building depth across the court. At times she wondered whether she was closing the gap on the Ferns but now she is convinced. Young players such as defender Julie Prendergast increase her confidence.

"She is the fastest athlete we've got. She's absolutely blown our fitness results apart. She's really put it out to everybody - not just speed but agility, where she's second only to Sharelle McMahon and she's in the top four in strength."

Whether she starts the first test in Wellington on Thursday remains to be seen but Plummer clearly thinks a Liz Ellis-Prendergast combination has a big future.

Another sign pointing in favour of Australia is that Plummer said for the first time she was working with a truly happy team.

A players' strike led to a new deal with Netball Australia that has significantly increased their pay.

The strike meant lost preparation time but the four days they had together were about the best Plummer's had.

"Players came in very happy. It was a great outcome for the girls so the camp went extremely well. Financially, they were worthy of being recognised so it was a great outcome.

"When players are struggling to maintain a job purely because they have to continually ask for time off or keep taking leave because they're playing netball... I mean they've got lives, they've got mortgages they have to be able to pay."

Plummer is still clearly envious about the profile netball gets in New Zealand and doesn't think the situation will change in Australia in a hurry.

"Netball is probably the No 2 [sport] in New Zealand, where we are way down the pecking order. We've got four football codes we've got to battle with to start."