Netball: Lengthy career comes to an end achingly short

Lois Muir

The no-nonsense matriarch of New Zealand netball is not usually one to show emotion but yesterday Lois Muir struggled as 2500 Dunedin fans rose to their feet to acknowledge the end of a coaching career which has spanned more than three decades.

Muir's Otago Rebels suffered the cruel fate of beating the Diamonds 48-46 but losing the fight for a National Bank Cup semifinal spot.

The Rebels needed to beat the Diamonds by six to scrape into the top-four play-offs.

The Diamonds will now meet the Southern Sting in Auckland on Sunday afternoon in the sudden-death play-off.

The Magic will play the Force in Hamilton on Friday night. The winner of this match will advance directly to the final and the loser will meet the winner of the Diamonds-Sting game to determine the other finalist.

Yesterday afternoon, 70-year-old Muir was the toast of netball the fraternity as the curtain came down on her coaching career - one of the longest and most successful in New Zealand sport.

"When they were warming up I had a bit of a lump in my throat and thought to myself I am going to miss being with these players, and had a little bit of a cry," Muir said.

"Once we got into the game it was busy but that big lump in my throat came back afterwards."

Muir will also stand down as a member of the Rebels board.

 

Former Netball New Zealand chair Kereyn Smith, who presented Muir with a diamond watch, said her former players would remember Muir as being "formidable and fearsome but with great fondness".

During her 15 years as New Zealand coach, which ended in 1988, Muir guided the national side to 87 wins, five draws and only 10 losses in 102 tests.

She helped the Silver Ferns to two world championships - in 1979, when they finished first equal with Australia and Trinidad and Tobago, and in 1987, when New Zealand won outright.

As a player Muir represented New Zealand in netball and basketball.

She has served as an administrator for Netball NZ, the Hillary Commission, the Sports Foundation, the Masters Games and the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame, into which she was inducted in 1993.

While the world championship wins are the highlights of her career, Muir has said, she has also had a lot of pleasure from seeing players she coached still involved in netball.

"That is exciting for me ... to see they still have a passion for it."

A survivor of breast cancer, Muir is the patron of Breast Cancer New Zealand and has always joked about not being ready for her rocking chair.

Even now the chair will have to wait, as Muir plans to continue working with age-group players and would be keen to cement a technical advisory role.

"Don't even mention the rocking chair," she laughs.