2018 Season Preview: Silvermoon Tactix
With a healthy mix of experience and exciting young talent in their midst, the Silvermoon Tactix have the potential to make a real splash in this year’s ANZ Premiership competition.
Retaining seven players from last year’s team which finished the second half of the season in impressive fashion, head coach Marianne Delaney-Hoshek has also added shooting import Kate Beveridge, 2017 ANZ Premiership Player of the Year Jane Watson and highly regarded young midcourter Kimiora Poi.
Beveridge, the well-travelled former Australian Diamond, played in the previous trans-Tasman competition for the Adelaide Thunderbirds, Melbourne Vixens and West Coast Fever. Long limbed defender Watson, plying her trade for the Southern Steel, had the most impressive of season’s in 2017 while Poi’s credentials were highlighted through her exploits as a member of last year’s Netball World Youth Cup-winning NZU21 team and unbeaten Central Beko Netball League team.
Canterbury stalwart Julie Seymour has also been welcomed back as assistant coach, a position she has held previously. She and Delaney-Hoshek are well acquainted as a successful coaching partnership after working together with the New Zealand Secondary Schools team.
``Our aim is to be better than we’ve been before,’’ Delaney-Hoshek said. ``We’re working hard and we’ve got a lot more to do but I want the girls to play with passion and heart every game and deliver good basics.
``This competition is an absolute rollercoaster ride. This is my seventh (year at this level) and I’ve been lucky enough to sit behind some really good coaches in Robin Broughton and Sue Hawkins. To be a part of that and learn from it all has helped so much and it’s a great to be in this role now.’’
Coming into the second year of Netball New Zealand’s standalone elite domestic competition, Delaney-Hoshek expects all teams will have taken key learnings from the first edition and be wiser for the experience in 2018.
The quick turnarounds for teams at various stages of the season and playing each team three times over the course of the campaign were new aspects which teams had to factor into their preparation.
``It was different to what we’d had in the previous competition and any new competition takes a little while to embed itself,’’ she said.
``The fact the we only allow one import and, ultimately, we all want to get to the space where we only have our own players is key to building and preparing our elite players.
``By limiting it in this way allows us to develop more of our players, it’s not going to happen straight away, but we will see those winning U21s come through in this competition and really start pushing. That’s going to happen over the next couple of years while lifting the performance levels in the process.’’
2017 Placing: 6th
Silvermoon Tactix 2018:
Kate Beveridge, Ellie Bird, Charlotte Elley, Temalisi Fakahokotau, Brooke Leaver, Jess Maclennan (nee Moulds), Erikana Pedersen, Kimiora Poi, Zoe Walker, Jane Watson.
Gains: Kate Beveridge, Ellie Bird, Kimiora Poi, Jane Watson
Losses: Kadin Corbin, Nicola Mackle, Hayley Saunders (Magic), Anna Thompson.