Chris Rattue: Let's get tough when Ferns choke in a two-horse race

Netball needs a tougher edge. It needs spectators who boo. Photo / Getty Images

The Silver Ferns are chokers. C.H.O.K.E.R.S.

Great. Got that off the chest ... and there's more.

The quieter, the more sympathetic the reaction to the world champs defeat against Australia, the more tempting it is to put the boot in. New Zealand celebrates netball triumphs but quickly switches channels in defeat, suggesting much netball support is a token gesture.

Women's sport has an uphill - almost impossible - battle overcoming the entrenched male bias, but retaining a jolly-hockey-sticks attitude won't fix that, and nor should it. Netball gets a decent ride in publicity, but gives little of real interest back. Even the atmosphere in netball stadiums is boringly happy-clappy - the spectators wield thunder sticks, but the effect is as wild as a spring rain.

Netball needs a tougher edge. It needs spectators who boo, or at least quietly stew. It needs columnists who rip into failures. It needs some Justin Marshall types who break the mould and say what they think, commentators who don't appear as if they're mates with the team.

It needs someone like John Dybvig, who won media coverage for basketball well beyond its standing. It needs a Richard Loe, telling the national team to toughen up. It needs a Sonny Bill Williams, with an X-factor. It needs an outrageous Norma Plummer. It needs to stop being so goody two shoes.

New Zealand netball is high on talent, short on a hard-arsed attitude and propped up by imports. Our few gold medals of the past decade leaned heavily on switch-hitting imports, masking the true state of the game here. Coaches and selectors are not developing enough test-class stars or fighters.

Our record in recent times would have been far worse had it not been for the presence of two South Africans and a Fijian. When you consider there are only seven players on a netball court, this ratio is embarrassing.

Star import Irene van Dyk is a legend, but she isn't a genius. She's a tall, tough but not overly mobile shooter with an obsessive attitude to practice. New Zealand should produce an Irene van Dyk, but hasn't come close.

The Silver Ferns were pipped at the post by an average Australian team in Singapore, meaning in 13 world series we've won outright three times. In most world series this record wouldn't be bad but since netball is a two-horse race, it stinks.

If this actually was a two-horse race, it would be like Phar Lap versus Mr Ed. These failures extend to the transtasman championship, where New Zealand finish a distant second best at best. Tactically, Australia are more ruthless and astute.

Van Dyk and her new-Kiwi mates are wonderful contributors to our netball and sport. But most real international sports wouldn't allow established internationals to make the allegiance switches that enabled van Dyk, Leana de Bruin and Vilimaina Davu to bolster the Ferns.

Australian netballers are brought up tough. They learn young that netball competes with greyhound racing and frisbee throwing for media attention and even then it often loses out. But they don't often lose to us.