Netball World Cup: Fear returns to help plot trophy bid

Tracey Fear. Photo / Getty Images

The Silver Ferns have re-enlisted former high performance manager Tracey Fear to help plot the team's bid for World Cup glory.

Fear, who left Netball NZ in 2012 after 16 years, is helping the Ferns behind the scenes as a video and stats analyst.

The former Silver Ferns defender now lives in Sydney after taking up a role with Netball NSW two years ago. She left the organisation at the end of last year to become director of sport at a top Sydney school.

The opportunity to be involved in the Ferns' World Cup campaign came after Netball NZ manager Esther Molloy contacted Fear to see if the school had a suitable training venue for the New Zealand side.

It didn't, but Fear said if she could be of any use, she'd be happy to help.

Before she knew it, she was perched at the top of the stands in Sydney's Allphones Arena with a video camera and a laptop.

Fear has played down her role, saying she is just giving the coaching staff and performance analyst Bobby Willcox a few insights that might not be as obvious at court level.

"It's just a different perspective end on [the court], and a different view of the world. When you're up close and personal it's not quite the same, so I'm just taking some stats and looking for trends," said Fear.

Fear, who was born in Canberra but moved to New Zealand as a teenager, said she was enjoying the chance to wear the silver fern again.

"Moving to Australia at the start of 2013, I thought, 'Well, that's it, I have to see red now,' as in red Swifts, and that was exciting, but it is very good to be back in black," she said.

Fear is impressed with what she has seen from the team over the past week - particularly last Sunday's 52-47 win over Australia. While the Ferns have had a couple of shaky outings against Jamaica and Malawi since then, Fear said that was to be expected in a tournament environment.

"For them to be so composed was fantastic, but I think we'll probably go up and down but we'll go up again and we'll be ready for the grunty bit at the end of the week."

Despite the addition of Fear, the Australian support team still dwarfs that of New Zealand. The Diamonds have 13 staff for the Sydney tournament, including a wellbeing manager and recovery physiologist. The Ferns have seven.