The Guardian
01/20/2019
Australia's next generation of netballers face defining World Cup
Defeat to England and the way their hosts celebrated may give the Diamonds added motivation.
Erin Delahunty
Freelance journalist
Australia
Australia
Defeat to England and the way their hosts celebrated may give the Diamonds added motivation.
Diamonds coach Lisa Alexander expects the Roses to use the upcoming series to prove last year's success was no fluke.
Look, I'm not a wanker. Really, I'm not ... but I am 100%, hook, line and kettle bell addicted to the fitness cult that is F45.
Melbourne's proposed airport rail link could be a "game-changer" for commercial property in the city's west.
Decentralisation has emerged as a key issue for Victoria’s commercial property sector in the upcoming state election.
Plans for Australia's domestic competition during next year's tournament raise major concerns.
With the rise and rise of online shopping and demand for "convenience and experience", the retail sector across Australia is undergoing significant change.
Heading into a World Cup year Australia’s rivals can take heart from New Zealand’s recent performances.
The logistics of delivering a week-long international sporting event across Sydney - involving 660 competitors from 18 nations, 800 media, 1300 volunteers and 100,000 spectators - are mindbogglingly complex.
Captain Caitlin Bassett is happy for every other team to think the Diamonds are the ones to beat at next year's World Cup.
Diamonds gain revenge as visitors miss injured Jo Harten.
With a pool, 24-hour movie theatres showing the latest blockbusters for free and even a sunflower garden, Singapore's Changi Airport has never been run-of-the-mill, but its latest upgrade is somehow taking it up another notch.
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It's a "crazy, abnormal time", but it might just be the catalyst for a spectacular new normal.
In the end, it was all about balance. The Sunshine Coast Lightning won their second straight Super Netball premiership on the back of an all-court performance. Not flashy individual efforts, not spectacular intercepts in the dying seconds, not coaching trickery.
In Sunday's Super Netball decider, there are "known knowns" - Caribbean colossal Jhaniele Fowler will drain 50 goals at one end and dependable Diamond Caitlin Bassett will bag similar at the other - but it's the "known unknown" of defensive dominance that matters more.
With a bit of knowledge, it's possible to transform even a tiny studio into a lush oasis. These are the best 6 plants for small indoor living.
It was sold by the game's bosses as a way to "incentivise teams to make every quarter count" and commentators have praised the system for keeping "games live" and helping them "build drama" for viewers, but some believe Super Netball's contentious bonus points system should be scrapped.
After failing to impress in season one of Super Netball last year and losing four of their first five matches in 2018, Collingwood's shock win over the Queensland Firebirds last weekend has enabled the "galácticos" of Super Netball to somehow recalibrate their season, which had previously been in danger of fizzling out for a second year in succession.
Sue Gaudion has a memo for the netball lovers of Australia: "Turn the bloody TV on and watch it."
Netball's tectonic plates shifted when England stunned Australia and more change is afoot as Super Netball radically revamps scoring system
England are in the box seat to end the decades-long antipodean stranglehold on world netball at the Commonwealth Games, according to one leading analyst.
As reigning world & Commonwealth champions - and with New Zealand floundering - the Diamonds are already pencilled-in by many to win at the Gold Coast Games.
A new Australian study shows stylish indoor botanicals also have the power to improve health and wellbeing. Here's the lowdown.
A new set of irreverent stickers has decoded the quirks and characteristics of the Melbourne's iconic suburbs, landmarks and habits.
Deck the paddocks in tinsel and tyres: While many spectacular Christmas displays are found in Australia's big cities, country folk can be just as creative when it comes to festive flourishes. From colourful, solar-powered LED-lit tractors, to trees made of piled up old palettes or truck tyres and even towering hay bale constructions beside highways, we've tracked down some of the quirkiest examples of country Christmas decorations.
Netball, like other sports, must be receptive to change, to ensure it continues to thrive in an increasingly cluttered landscape.
A Kiwi sharpshooter will bring plenty of personality and blunt words to Super Netball.
After a 10-goal loss to arch-rivals New Zealand in the Quad Series last month, the Diamonds on Wednesday retained the Constellation Cup with a 55-43 win over the Silver Ferns.
“So, what do you do?” is the universal icebreaker. The answer is often a lament about the tedious and not-especially fascinating daily grind.
After a shock 10-goal loss to the Silver Ferns last month, the Diamonds are in unfamiliar territory heading into the first Test of the Constellation Cup in Auckland.
A family-owned piggery in northern Victoria is about to unplug from the grid and rely on a $1 million biogas system for all its power.
Victoria Legal Aid has warned lawyer numbers are failing to keep up with a rise in child protection cases in some regional areas.
They call them sliding door moments; flashes in time that shift lives. For emerging netball star Courtney Bruce the first came a decade ago.
Sharni Layton is many things. She's a star netballer with a swag of World Cup and Commonwealth gold. She the game's only true cult figure.
It's the new sea change. A seemingly idyllic solar-powered existence, without jaw-dropping bills. It’s living “off the grid” & for two Victorian families, it’s becoming a reality.
Caitlin Bassett and Stephanie Wood shine for Lightning in grand final.
Collingwood wobbled. Wallets opened, stadiums heaved and TV ratings swelled.
I joined Andrew Donnison and AJ Mithen of the A Sporting Discussion podcast to discuss the first week of the Suncorp Super Netball finals series.
Goal defenders are netball's great chameleons, required to be fast-moving, canny and adaptable to change.
The new Super Netball league has kicked off. This is the guide you won't get anywhere else.
They're the self-styled anti-princesses of netball. They ones with skun knees and booming voices. The ones who hassle, hector and harangue.
They are netball's "galácticos". A band of stars, each so talented in their own right that collectively, they should be unbeatable.
Contrary to their reputation as ponytail-tossing glory-seekers, goal attacks have one of the most complex and critical assignments on the netball court.
It's netball's thankless task. A position which requires unceasing doggedness, the speed and conditioning of a sprinter, tactical nous and the disposition to allow others to take the glory when hard work translates into an intercept.
With access to more court real estate than any other player, a centre can have a huge influence on a netball game, but as Peter Parker knows, with great power, comes great responsibility.
Theirs was the Olympic story that intoxicated the nation. A young team, drawn from disparate sports, playing a new version of an old game in an electrifying way ... chasing history. It was the rise of Australia's women's rugby sevens team in Rio.
Thanks to a blistering defensive performance from 33-year-old Silver Fern Anna Harrison - who hassled, harangued and intimidated Diamonds' goaling superstar Caitlin Bassett - and a mammoth effort in defence, New Zealand beat Australia 53-51 in game two of the Constellation Cup in Launceston, to tie the series one-all.
Australian superstar Caitlin Bassett put on a shooting masterclass in Sydney this afternoon to lead her netball Diamonds to victory over the Silver Ferns in the first Test of the Constellation Cup series. Bassett knocked down 47 goals from 47 attempts in three quarters as Australia ran out 68-56 winners.
In New Zealand top netballers are household names, a situation that could be repeated in Australia if the new national league captures the public imagination
I joined Andrew Donnison and AJ Mithen of the A Sporting Discussion podcast to discuss the landmark netball pay deal.
Game on. That's the message from Australia's netball bosses, who today threw down the gauntlet to other elite female sports - or should that be, wannabe elite female sports - by announcing an unprecedented pay deal for the new national league's 80 players.
They say patience is a virtue. But fans of elite netball across Australia, including this one - so excited about the inaugural all-Australian league in 2017, featuring teams aligned to AFL and NRL clubs and to be screened in prime time on free-to-air - are all out of patience after months of uncertainty and an information vacuum.
She's torn a hamstring, shattered her wrist twice, broken her arm and generally been beaten from pillar to post in a life dedicated to taekwondo. But 67kg Carmen Marton, the daughter of Polish immigrants, this week begins her third Olympic campaign with a singular focus; gold. "Missing out in London was so tough.
"This is our last goodbye,I hate to feel the love between us die,But it's over ..." American singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley certainly wasn't lamenting the end of a trans-Tasman netball competition when he penned his 1995 heartbreak standard, Last Goodbye.
While the Australian track and field team is missing its best medal chance at this Games, with hurdle superstar Sally Pearson out injured, retired sprint champion and track and field selector Melinda Gainsford-Taylor is confident others will step up.
I joined Andrew Donnison and AJ Mithen of the A Sporting Discussion podcast to chat all things netball.
It's fair to say I don't have a whole lot in common with Laura Geitz, the super-fit, world-beating 185cm netball superstar who has become one of the game's most recognisable faces ...
Netball fans opposed to radical rule changes in the new national league have good company – Australian Diamonds coach Lisa Alexander.
If Nevins' Firebirds can get over the NSW Swifts in Monday night's Australian conference final - and go all the way to claim back-to-back ANZ premierships - the 170cm 29-year-old will become the first, and only, player to win three consecutive flags.
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Erin Delahunty & Megan Huswaite wonder aloud which of Australia’s elite female athletes would be superstars … if they played Aussie Rules.
One of Australia’s best netballers, Gabi Simpson, says changes to injury time are impacting players’ “bodies and safety” and should be reviewed
Paralympic javelin thrower Madeleine Hogan has all-but qualified for her third Paralympics, 7 months after a knee reconstruction – her second in 3 years.
The kids are all right. That’s the message from three young Victorians being raised by same-sex parents.
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Life hasn’t slowed down for world champion netballer Bianca Chatfield since retiring. Click headline to open PDF.
Australian Diamonds captain Laura Geitz says the introduction of different scoring zones - which Netball Australia has not ruled after the announcement the new national netball league - would change the "whole concept of the game." Netball Australia last week announced details of the new Australia-only league, which will be supported by a five-year free-to-air television deal on the Nine Network.
By any measure, Netball Australia's long-awaited announcement about the future of the game - which includes the end of the trans-Tasman ANZ Championship, a new all-Australian league, with new sides aligned to AFL and NRL clubs to replace it and a paid broadcast deal with Channel 9 and Telstra for primetime free-to-air coverage - is pretty spectacular.
The AFL wants to poach the best female athletes in the country for its much-hyped women’s league, but the sport with potentially the most to lose, netball, isn’t intimidated.
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The netball world is holding its breath, wondering what the game's premier competition, the ANZ Championship, will look like in 2017.
Netball is the second most popular team sport that Aussies play. Now the game's chiefs aim to make it the topic of conversation around water coolers each Monday.
The 2016 edition of the ANZ Championship begins on Friday, with the reigning premiers, Queensland Firebirds, opening their title defence against the Mainland Tactix in Brisbane. This season the Firebirds will be the hunted, as they attempt to make history as the only side to win back-to-back trans-Tasman titles.
Ashleigh Brazill didn't set out to be a trailblazer. But as one of the only openly gay elite netballers in Australia, the self-proclaimed "scrappy kid" from the New South Wales town of Bargo who celebrated a civil union with her partner on Saturday, she is one by default.
Our end-of-year series kicks off with Daniel Rioli, Charlotte Caslick and Gabi Simpson – Australia’s brightest young talents and names to watch out for in 2016.
Our series continues with Matthew Dellavedova, Gretel Tippett and Adam Voges, three athletes for whom 2015 was richly rewarding
The poaching of a Silver Fern by an Australian franchise, the confirmation of Laura Geitz's future, the signing of a 203cm basketball international, a sister act fairytale in Melbourne, a surprise return by a former Diamond and a new coach for Adelaide - the trans-Tasman netball championships trade period didn't disappoint.
Dramatic rule changes unveiled by netball's international governing body this week shows the need for speed, in what is already one of the world's fastest sports, is seemingly insatiable.
Around 1000 angry people converged on the Victorian city of Bendigo last weekend to argue for two wildly disparate causes. This was a battle over much more than the proposed building of the town's first mosque, it was a fight going to the heart of Australia's slow-burning self-immolation over Muslim migration.
With a resounding victory over Wales effectively secured by quarter-time in the last qualifying fixture at the Netball World Cup in Sydney, Australia coach Lisa Alexander was able to road test a number of positional possibilities ahead of a widely anticipated gold medal match on Sunday.
In a Netball World Cup where international rankings were reshuffled and the three most prolific goal scorers included a Malawian who plays like no one else before, a gigantic Jamaican who has honed her craft in the ANZ Championships and a 21-year-old university student from South Africa, questions about the longevity of the sport's Trans-Tasman dominance are inevitable.
New Zealand learned the hard way to never poke the Australian bear as a rampaging Diamonds team, wounded by a loss to their arch rivals earlier in the tournament, beat the Silver Ferns 58-55 in a characteristically heart-stopping Netball World Cup final in Sydney.
It's on. The Netball World Cup final fans have dreamed of since the spine-tingling double-extra time win by Australia over New Zealand in Singapore in 2011. The Trans-Tasman foes will fight for gold in Sydney on Sunday, after the Diamonds beat a determined and physical Jamaica 67-56 in front of 16,244 people.
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Guffaws about mining magnate Gina Rinehart's "big hole" on national television. Continual disrespect for our Prime Minister. And Lingerie Football League games in Australia. Did I miss a memo? Has war been declared on women?
John "Bill" McIlrath, 33, simply shouldn't be here. Last year, the Army reservist and former policeman was diagnosed with advanced testicular cancer, suffered a massive brain haemorrhage which left him in a coma for several weeks and underwent eight rounds of debilitating chemotherapy.
Real estate
With Australian cities getting denser and more expensive, especially when it comes to property, it's no surprise the 'city versus country' debate is at hot as ever.
While traditionally commuter hubs were 20-50kms from a city centre with good transport links and affordable housing, increasingly commuters now live up to 150kms away from CBDs. Commuter hubs across the country now include places like Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo in Victoria, Newcastle and Wollongong in New South Wales and the Gold Coast in Queensland.
Hunting for the perfect rental property can be both exciting and exhausting. There are red flags you need to look out for in your search. Here's what you need to know. Mark O'Brien, CEO of the Tenants Union of Victoria, which provides independent advice and assistance to tenants, says renters need to have their "wits about them" as they search for a home.
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An obsolete signal box, built in the 1870s, perched right alongside the town's main railway line, is for rent for $160 per week.
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With the AFL finals featuring teams from four states, Aussie Rules can stake its claim as the true national code - but it's not just state pride at stake. Who will win the real estate showdown? The other finals series: NRL suburbs battle it out The West Coast Eagles face Hawthorn at Perth's Subiaco Stadium on Friday.
Lifestyle
THE original bathroom in this North Melbourne converted warehouse didn't quite look like it suited the funky semi-industrial aesthetic of the rest of the property.
CLUTTER can be insidious - taking over every spare inch of a home - but it can be conquered.
DAISY Pearce, captain of the Melbourne Football Club's women's side and the Darebin Falcons, in the Victorian Women's Football League, is one of the superstars of women's footy. A former midwife who now works for the Melbourne Football Club, Daisy, 28, recently bought her first home, a two-bedroom apartment, in Parkville, with partner Angus Parry.
CERAMICIST Milly Dent is a marbling marvel. The 24-year-old Sydney-based artist, who suspends inky indigo stains in her eponymous range of contemporary asymmetrical pieces, is stocked in 30 stores across Australia, New Zealand and Japan, has a devoted following and is the darling of the 'healthspo' set.
TRUE to its era, the original kitchen in this 1950s home in leafy Ivanhoe East was hidden in a dark corner. So when Andrew and Sam Rolle became just the second owners of the historic gem, they knew the kitchen needed a refresh - especially with a baby on the way.
HAVING guests stay in your home can be stressful - especially during holiday periods - but with a bit of planning and care it is possible to be a 'host with the most' in no time.
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