Netball: no more bridesmaids vow

Magic GK Casey Williams. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Casey Williams has had enough of being the bridesmaid. The Magic captain, who famously called off her own wedding last year, has seen her team consistently stumble at the final hurdle over the three seasons of the ANZ Championship.

The Magic finished top of the league in 2008, but lost the grand final convincingly to the Swifts. The following year they topped the table after 13 rounds, only to lose their next three matches, including a home defeat in the preliminary final.

Last season a three-game losing streak was followed by a surge into the grand final, before another emphatic defeat.

"We are sick of coming second," says Williams. "We are sick of being that team that makes the final and doesn't come through. It is tough to take and you can only do that for so long. We know it is part of sport - there always has to be someone that is going to lose, we just don't want it to be us this year."

While the standard of play and competitiveness seems to increase with every season, Williams is determined that 2011 is their time.

"Each year we come back and say we want to do better but this year there seems to be a special feeling in the team. The extra urgency and the higher levels of intensity in training are going to pay off.

"It is about those crucial things that happen at crucial moments," says Williams. "It is about things happening during a game; we are not always feeling the momentum shift. It is about the basics and the small things. Every time we have lost we have done it to ourselves, really."

"For us, like most teams, the most important element is keeping possession of the ball under pressure," says coach Noeline Taurua.

She has also been developing some alternative game plans, to lessen the perceived reliance on route one and super shooter Irene van Dyk.

"Our intention is that we won't look like the the Magic of old. We want to have variety, excitement, add our unique players and see what rocks up. Maybe sometimes we have been predictable; people know what we are going to do."

Taurua also pinpointed more discipline and judicious use of bench options to keep players fresh as other key factors.

Depth beyond the big three of Williams, van Dyk and Laura Langman looms as an Achilles heel in 2011, especially with the shortened season meaning more matches in less time. Australian Peta Scholz will bring grit and knowhow and Frances Solia is an accomplished competitor at this level - but the rest of the 12-player squad is promising rather than proven.

"[Those three] are superstars," admits Taurua, "they are high performance athletes and form the essence of our team. As we saw with the Vixens last year, losing quality players can be disruptive. If we lost any of them to injury it would rock the boat. But we need to share the load and it is not just about three or four players."

"There is a little bit of a gap," admits Williams, "but it doesn't show out on court or in training. At the moment Laura, Irene and myself are just Magic players; we are not Silver Ferns. We have a strong 12 - you could put anybody out there on court and they could do a good job."

Both Taurua and Williams are adamant the side has moved on and forgotten the off-court dramas of last season, when the team blacklisted a journalist following criticism of their operation and training methods.

"You can always reflect on what could have been done better," says Taurua. "Our intention is to always promote the game positively but with high performance athletes and high performances coaches you have to take the negative with the positive."

Meanwhile, Williams says she is "raring to go" for the clash against perennial rivals the Steel in Rotorua this evening.

She is fully fit, injury-free and refreshed after a break.