The next day, the former title-winning Pulse coach started a four-day training camp with the Silver Ferns.
McCausland-Durie will remain as interim coach for the Constellation Cup and November tour to the UK, which was a far bigger commitment.
As co-tumuaki (principal) at Tipene, formerly St Stephen’s School in Bombay, juggling her schedule had been quite the logistical undertaking.
“It’s been massive just getting here; basically, I’m out for seven weeks of a 10-week school term,” McCausland-Durie said.
She had a little bit of a heads up from Netball NZ the day before, she said. “On Friday they said ‘look we’re not sure we’re going to come to a resolution ... would this be possible?’”
The Silver Ferns assemble on Tuesday for a five-day training camp in Auckland before travelling to Australia for the series opener in Melbourne on October 17.
It would be a much tougher assignment than the Taini Jamison series, which the Ferns swept 3-nil.
McCausland-Durie admitted the past few weeks had been very surreal.
“It is what it is ... I just want to help make a difference. Even though I’m still interim, it’s a longer period, so I feel that ability to add a little bit of myself as possible.”
It was expected Dame Noeline would be announcing a new captain early last month, with Ameliaranne Ekenasio not making herself available for 2025.
Instead, rotating captains were used throughout the South Africa series.
By the end of this week’s camp, an interim captain and vice-captain would be named for the Constellation Cup and next month’s Northern Tour in the UK to provide some consistency.
Karin Burger, Kelly Jackson, Kate Heffernan and Grace Nweke were in contention for captaincy roles.
Since Taurua was suspended last month, the scrutiny around the team has been unprecedented.
McCausland-Durie said there was a lot of pressure.
“Yeah, on all of us ... we accept there’s a huge amount of challenge. But we’ve got a big job ahead of us in order to make sure that we own what we are there to do as professionals and so I was really impressed with how they did that [last month].
“So we’ve got to do that work again in this camp ... and respectfully kind of put the noise out and put it behind us and that’s all we’ve got to do and it’s not easy at all, it’s been really challenging.”
Does she feel like the netball community, who were fiercely loyal to Taurua, accepted her coming in as interim coach?
“I think it’s mixed. I think in some ways people are seeing me coming in as not being supportive of Noeline but gosh I think she’s a great coach, she’s done an amazing job ... I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t fully support, I would have just gone ‘look I don’t need this’ but I really believe strongly in the Silver Ferns and for me it’s not about anything else, I haven’t applied for a job, I’m absolutely here as an interim.”
A 14-strong Silver Ferns squad was named for the series against Australia on Monday. The addition of Amelia Walmsley, who has returned from the Netball World Youth Cup in Gibraltar, is the only change.
The Silver Ferns lifted the Constellation Cup for just the third time last year after beating the world champions 3-1.
