Top ANZ Premiership performers celebrated

Making the move to Wellington from Auckland in her first year out of school in 2018, dynamic young midcourter Gordon - this year’s winner of the Casey Kopua MVP - quickly found her niche in the Capital to become a permanent fixture in Te Wānanga o Raukawa Pulse colours over the past five seasons.

The lively and ever-present centre court player has gone on to forge an impressive career which has consistently matured and excelled with time. A super quick and skilful midcourter with a non-stop engine, Gordon’s all-round credentials enable her to slip comfortably between all three central court positions, resulting in her becoming a key cog in the Pulse line-up.

Spending a full season at centre along with a growing maturity and improved game structure to compliment her court craft, the midcourt dynamo produced a compelling 2023 domestic season.

Accurate and consistent with her ball skills, movement and feeding on attack, Gordon is equally reliable on defence through her relentless disruptive hunting and speed.

Gordon featured consistently in the top 10 for feeds, intercepts and deflections during the 2023 season across all players while showcasing the growing reliability of her athletic abilities in tandem with her overall court craft.

With the backdrop of familiarity, Winikerei couldn’t have asked for a better foundation as she ushered in a new era while claiming the ANZ Premiership title in her first season as head coach of the MG Mystics and subsequent Robyn Broughton Trophy in the New Zealand Netball Awards.

The only new ANZ Premiership head coach in 2023, the homegrown Winikerei had already been heavily involved with the Mystics in recent seasons, holding the apprentice coach role for the previous two years to leave her well-prepared to step up and into the hot seat.

Familiarity with the environment and personnel along with extensive ground work laid through supportive development over the years, Winikerei has developed a deep understanding of the Mystics culture and its people, a key feature in their subsequent success.

Winikerei was the inaugural head coach of the Mystics men’s team in 2022 and has held athlete development and high performance manager roles. This was preceded by a successful 16-year career in the public service where she held a variety of leadership roles.

The experienced Fowler has fashioned an impressive resume to become one of the New Zealand’s leading umpires.

Named National Umpire of the Year in 2015, Hutt Valley’s Fowler was part of the ANZ Championship Umpires Squad for the first time in 2016 and in 2017 umpired his first elite level final, the ANZ Premiership Grand Final.

He has since umpired at international events around the world, including two Netball World Cups, two Commonwealth Games and the Nations Cup.