After turning the Silver Ferns around in 11 months, Noeline Taurua's name will go down in Netball NZ history. Photo / Getty
When Noeline Taurua was first appointed head coach of the Silver Ferns, there was one simple message she made clear.
"I can't save the world overnight."
Repeating that exact phrase almost every time she was asked for her thoughts on being hailed as the Silver Ferns' saving grace, Taurua was clear on what netball fans should and shouldn't expect of her.
And her words proved true as the Silver Ferns were continuously - in Taurua's words - "walloped" by the likes of England and Australia on the international stage as recent as January's Quad Series.
But when the Silver Ferns lifted the Netball World Cup trophy last month in Liverpool to break a 16-year drought, Taurua was probably the only Kiwi who didn't wear an expression of shock.
Everything had gone perfectly to plan, and part of Taurua always knew they could pull it off even when the public's faith dwindled.
A lack in faith in taking out the Netball World Cup was not an unpopular stance among Kiwi sports fans.
Bombing out of the Commonwealth Games following a handful of embarrassing loses just 15 months prior, the Ferns returned to New Zealand medal-less and bearing little hope of what the future held.
Tears were shed, heads hung low and it seemed the Ferns were in for a long run of disappointment.
An overwhelming sense of shame had rocked the New Zealand netball scene and hope of being crowned World Champions was slim.
That was until Taurua's name was mentioned.
Quickly rising up as the top pick to take over the ailing side when then-head coach Janine Southby stood down, Taurua was hailed as the answer to Netball New Zealand's (NNZ) woes.
It wasn't going to be an easy recruit for the national body, however, after they previously snubbed the former Waikato-Bay of Plenty Magic coach for the top job.
Taurua's commitment to seeing her contract through with the Sunshine Coast Lightning in Australia's Super Netball league was only one of many hoops NNZ had to jump through in order to convince her to sign on the dotted line.
"There were quite a few deal-breakers so to speak," Taurua says. "There were clear areas I wanted to delve into. There was a lot of negotiations."
Unsurprisingly, allowing Laura Langman to be eligible for Silver Ferns selection while playing for the Lightning was top of Taurua's list.
The now New Zealand captain was banned from the black dress when she opted to play in Australia, but Taurua knew how important Langman's leadership, experience and world-class abilities would be if the Ferns wished to have a shot at the World Cup title.
"I know Laura back-to-front as she knows me and I always back her," Taurua says. "For me it was a deal-breaker among the many things.
"We needed the best stock we could possibly get so there needed to be discussions from a board perspective as to whether they were open to allow that to happen."
Swallowing their pride, NNZ agreed upon her conditions and suddenly Taurua was set with an opportunity to prove her worth as New Zealand's top netball coach.
The clock was ticking though. With just 11 months before she faced the biggest test in her coaching career, Taurua wasn't willing to hold back on whichever structures, processes and systems she felt needed to change.
"Where we were as an organisation and a team coming out of Commonwealth Games, I knew that there was a bit of work to do," she says.
"I knew there were breakdowns, lack of connection to some degree and definitely those key components that make up an international athlete around positions, people being able to do their jobs, the fitness component and the ability to deliver under pressure.
"It all seemed to be a reoccurring message that we weren't able to deliver when we took international games on."
Being unable to perform when it mattered most was no easy weakness for Taurua to shake out of the Ferns side.
The Silver Ferns had fallen into a pattern of promising starts and unconvincing finishes that, for the first part of Taurua's reign at least, looked seemingly impossible to fix. The lack of international exposure from playing in a domestic league was one among many things blamed for the Ferns' downfall.
But Taurua instead looked at the factors she could change when drawing up her plans for World domination.
Her grand plan involved much more than just lifting the fitness standard, recruiting the best players in New Zealand and enticing retired star Casey Kopua to pull on the black dress one last time.
Beneath the surface of what looked like a one-man band, Taurua was recruiting advice and guidance from the likes of former coaches Yvonne Willering and Ruth Aitken – something NNZ had not offered to support during Southby's tenure.
She established a support network around not only her players but herself.
"The support that was put in around [Southby] at the time is probably questionable," Taurua says. "In the past, we've closed ourselves off and if people don't fit the box then we don't open ourselves to what they want to say.
"We've had amazing people that have been involved for many years and bringing those people back into the mix ... I think we opened ourselves and widened ourselves in regards to our landscape."
Taurua's first test came just 16 days after her official appointment when the Silver Ferns took on England at Auckland's Spark Arena in the Netball Quad Series.
There wasn't much hope around the Ferns winning straight out the park, but the 52-39 loss was a little too hefty for even Langman's liking, who admitted she didn't expect their bar to be so low.
Closing out the season with just three wins from 10 games across the Constellation Cup and Quad Series, Taurua entered the World Cup with just a 30 per cent win rate to her name.
But while Kiwi netball fans were starting to give up hope, things were still going to plan for Taurua who says the team was exactly where she wanted them.
"It was a slow progression and a slow slog," she says."Unfortunately or fortunately the first couple of series' that we had at the beginning we got walloped but it was just a process I had to go through to try and learn what the landscape was.
"From there I had a clear understanding of how these athletes handle the pressure and what they're like both on and off the court."
With the World Cup fast approaching, Taurua was confident she'd addressed all she needed to before one last hurdle appeared.
Maria Folau's husband, Israel Folau, had set up a controversial crowdfunding page to raise money to fight his case against Rugby Australia (RA) less than two weeks out from the Netball World Cup.
Set to sue RA for terminating his $4 million contract after he posted a graphic to Instagram which said "hell awaits" homosexuals, Israel copped criticism and backlash from the public as netball fans took aim at Maria for endorsing her husband's stance.
Calling board meetings while encouraging individuals to express their views, Taurua says it was a final test to measure the strength of the players' support for one another.
"It was a testing time for our team to see whether we were going to galvanise around her and whether we were prepared to support her and express the thoughts of where people were sitting individually," she says.
"As it came out, it brought us closer together and showed as well that once we're all on the same page, nothing is going to break us in making sure our priority was getting out there and playing on court and doing everything proud for the World Cup."
Doing the World Cup and the black dress proud was exactly what they did as the Silver Ferns fed fresh hope ahead of their do-or-die grand final.
And after watching her Ferns take to the court with a stunning win over hosts England in the semifinal, Taurua says it was at that point she knew they had the title.
"I felt like we got it," she says. "For us to come out there and beat England with such style and also to put them on the back foot right from the start ... that was a massive shift for us as a team.
"It's a beautiful thing when you as a coach can sit back and watch it all unfold and when we got to the grand final, there was nothing else that we could've done in that space and time and we just needed to play."
What's next for the inspirational coach is yet to be determined as she first looks to guide the Lightning through the final few months of the Super Netball season.
Saying she'd like to spend some time to sit back and smell the roses, Taurua hinted to ending her chapter with the Silver Ferns later this year.
Although she would be a massive loss to the side, Taurua's impact will undoubtedly be carried far into the future. As for her personal aspirations, it seems Taurua has ticked off all she set out to achieve.
She proved her doubters wrong, proved she was worthy of being the Silver Ferns' head coach and proved that although she may not be able to save the world overnight, give her 11 months and she'll pull off the seemingly impossible.
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