Netball: Fair suck of the sav, says Ellis, NZ attitude's better

SYDNEY - Liz Ellis is a sporting warrior who hates to lose.

She is one of Australia's netball greats - notably at her best when the competition is toughest, as New Zealand's netballers would attest.

The Silver Ferns' gold medal win over the Australians at the Commonwealth Games in March was made easier by the indomitable one's absence due to a torn knee ligament.

"It was miserable. It was awful. I expected it to be awful to watch, and it proved to be that way," Ellis said of watching the netball at the Games.

But although she is one of Australia's best sportswomen and articulate and opinionated enough to appear often on television panel shows, her profile is low compared with the likes of Andrew Johns, George Gregan and Ricky Ponting.

That is because the football codes and cricket dominate media coverage in Australia, while women's sports pale in comparison.

As focused as she is on refusing to give New Zealand an inch on the court, Ellis is refreshingly unblinkered off it.

Last week she commended the media and public attitude towards netball across the Ditch compared with that in Australia.

The following quote was full of trans-tasman love: "I hate admitting that New Zealand is better than Australia at anything, but in this case I have to admit defeat. Here is an enlightened country. Not only does it have a woman as prime minister, but netball regularly appears among the country's most watched television programmes."

While netball is a ratings winner in New Zealand, the commercial and pay-TV networks in Australia won't touch it. It screens on the ABC, but not in prime time.

Ellis, in a column in the Sydney Morning Herald, summed up the situation neatly.

"While our long-suffering male colleagues, of all codes, strain under the weight of hours of live coverage, delayed coverage, replays, analysis and media speculation - and that's just about their telephone conversations - sportswomen are out running, passing, catching, kicking and throwing, while the rest of the Australia doesn't watch."

Now could this be because Australia is such an entrenched chauvinistic country, where television viewers are dominated by beer-swilling blokes on couches who have no time at all for sheilas' sports?

Ellis didn't want to say this was the answer, though the number of television ads that screen showing groups of blokes drinking and eyeing up young blondes might persuade one otherwise.

"Surely Australian sports fans can't all be characterised as sexist pigs who just want to watch grown men in tight shorts beat the daylights out of each other over a piece of leather?" she wrote.

"Surely the Kiwis aren't simply a bunch of enlightened SNAGs [sensitive New Age guys] who not only watch netball, but idolise a footballer who beat the living daylights out of his teammate with a handbag."

While that is part of the answer, Ellis understands why the media outlets are not giving netball a fair go.

"They are running businesses, making decisions based on how much advertising dollars are going to flow in," she said.

Australian netball doesn't generate those dollars and will have to do far more in marketing to go anywhere like matching New Zealand for coverage.

- NZPA