Silver Ferns coach Ruth Aitken will delay naming her test line-up for this year's international series until the end of August as she and fellow selectors search for a solution to their lack of depth in the attack end.
Aitken had originally planned on naming her 12-strong team
on July 31 following Monday's ANZ Championship final in Sydney.
But the transtasman league has failed to provide any clear-cut candidates to plug the gaps in the attack end left vacant by shooter Jodi Brown and last year's captain Adine Wilson, who are both taking time out for motherhood.
Aitken will instead name an extended New Zealand squad of up to 18 players next week, with her test line-up due to be finalised at the end of next month.
"We just thought we'd give ourselves a bit of time," Aitken said.
"I'm very naive. At the start of each selection round I think, 'Now this is going to be simple,' and then I get to the end and think, 'This is just as bad as any of them!'," she joked.
She admitted her main areas of concern were in the wing-attack and goal-attack spots and hoped the New Zealand squad camps next month would provide her with some answers.
Aitken said Waikato/Bay of Plenty Magic coach Noeline Taurua's recent experiments with her line-up had also given the Ferns selectors a bit of food for thought.
Taurua has made several positional changes among her squad, with Irene van Dyk now featuring at goal-attack, while Laura Langman made a successful switch to wing-attack last week
"It's very interesting, I rock up and say, 'Now what's Noeline going to do this week?'," she laughed.
"It's just shown me the quality of those players being able to make a shift and just get on with it and do really well.
