Super Sunday is coming to Invercargill
The Ascot Park Hotel Southern Steel will host the final Super Sunday of the 2019 season at ILT Stadium Southland. One ticket, three games. Get your tickets here
Back to back Champs
Knowing how to “win the right game” has played a big part in the Ascot Park Hotel Southern Steel’s mindset which led to back-to-back ANZ Premiership titles.
The Reinga Bloxham-coached Steel side won the inaugural crown in 2017 and then produced a remarkable come-from-behind victory in the closing minutes of the 2018 league for a second straight Premiership.
Bloxham believed the Steel had many attributes including the players’ desire to challenge each other, an established core who knew how to win, and their ability to enjoy the game under pressure.
Their goal was always to reach the final and give themselves the chance to claim the major spoils.
“It is a real mindset for the players,” she said. “We keep that goal in mind of getting to that final.
“I think with that experience comes that knowledge of knowing how to win. And just as importantly it is knowing how to win the right game.”
She said the Steel had been expected to claim the first title when they boasted towering Jamaican shooter Jhaniele Fowler-Reid in their ranks.
“It was still an amazing feeling (to win) but I know that it meant a lot to the players to back it up the following year, and the way we did it.”
The Steel coach is in her third season in the hot southern seat after spending a season as assistant to Noeline Taurua in 2016.
She got the chance to reconnect with Taurua, now the Silver Ferns head coach, when she was assistant coach for the national side in last year’s Constellation Cup.
“I absolutely enjoyed it,” Bloxham said. “The learnings for me were just looking at the level of intensity that the players need to train at and the expectations the coaches put on the players.
“Being able to take that back to the Steel, particularly to the group of established players that we have, and being able to challenge them to keep improving and playing good netball – it has been invaluable.”