Caitlin Bassett
Tall shooters are a dime-a-dozen these days, and at 192cm Bassett doesn’t even make the top five for the tallest goal shooters in the ANZ Championships. There are even taller goalers playing second tier netball Australia.
But it’s Bassett who has become the Diamonds top shooter – 49 goals in last year’s Commonwealth Games final drubbing of New Zealand, finishing the tournament with 391 goals at 87% accuracy. She’s been in great form all season, and with the exception of England’s Geva Mentor (and only sometimes) – no defender can work out how to stop her.
Bassett is a powerful athlete, her positioning is very good, she is extra strong under pressure and her simple low-trajectory, one handed flick shooting technique is deadly accurate.
Bassett’s temperament plays a big a part in her success, she grins no matter what; an idiosyncrasy which infuriate her already frustrated opponents.
The 26-year-old West Australian also keeps improving – adding more movement and the ability to shoot mid-range in recent years.
Laura Geitz
Captain Geitz is a big game, big moment player – probably the best performing Australian player of this year’s ANZ Championship which was dominated by the Australian teams. Only two teams – both Australian – scored more than 50 goals against the Geitz-led Firebirds backline this year.
Geitz’s mastery of Cathrine Latu, has forced New Zealand to drop the 193cm shooter from their team. She turned over the ball three times in the last 10 minutes in the ANZ final to give Firebirds a come from behind win.
Geitz has it all – good positioning, aerial prowess, pressure over the shot, an ability to play both on-the-player and pick up spectacular intercepts.
This might be the last we see of the smiling assassin. Having already picked up two ANZ Championships, a Commonwealth Games Gold and a World Cup – there is very little left for Geitz to do on court.
Netball Australia and Queensland both remain tight lipped about her intentions for next year.
Kim Green
An injury to Madison Robinson has given a slight taint to the Diamonds’ invincibility, but her absence shouldn’t prove crucial with Kim Green on the boards.
The Diamonds vice-captain will need to step up, and providing injury doesn’t get in her way – Australia won’t lose a great deal by having the NSW Swifts stalwart in Robinson’s spot. Green and Robinson are both dominant players and tend not combine terribly well in the middle – but Green, does well with the unassuming Kim Ravallion at centre.
Green is a terrier around the midcourt, she has shown an ability to turn and flick long passes to Bassett. She is also very solid on defence. Her match-ups against England’s Serena Guthrie, New Zealand’s Kayla Cullen and the rugged Jamaicans should be fascinating to watch.
Natalie Medhurst
Back in 2004, Natalie Medhurst missed her first selection for the Australian under-21 team. With the side touring Jamaica in the lead up to the Youth World Championships, then under-21 coach Michelle Wilkins said that Medhurst – while a very accurate shooter – had not shown she could play with a tall, holding shooter.
Medhurst, who did eventually crack the Youth World team, had come from an era in South Australian netball which always had a fast midcourt and two moving shooters who shared the load.
10 years later and Medhurst’s combination with tall timber Bassett has given the Diamonds a World Cup and a Commonwealth Games gold, not to mention 19 straight wins. In the past five years, Medhurst has quickly developed into a brilliant space maker and elusive feeder of the ball, given she almost always shoots in high percentages, and can move the ball around the midcourt – she is now possibly the best goal attack in the game.
The West Coast Fever goaler tends to play the wider edges of the circle and the baseline, with Bassett occupying the middle part closest to the post, it’s a combination which has proved impossible to stop at the international level.
Kim Ravallion
Ravallion at 22 is the young superstar of the line-up. Her game is incredibly mature; she rarely turns over the ball and always runs into the right space. There hasn’t been a midcourt player who has stopped the rock-steady centre all season – and her entry into the Diamonds seven marked the end of several years’ dominance of the middle by Silver Ferns Laura Langman.
The NSW native is possibly the fittest netballer going around and there are very few chinks in her game’s overall armour.
