She was a world champion sevens player and a promising basketballer, but Renee Savai'inaea chose to pour her strength and smarts into netball - a decision that's paying off with her move south to the Steel.
There’s a multi-coloured chandelier hanging in Renee Savai’inea’s bedroom in the Dunedin flat she moved into this year.
The Southern Steel midcourter shares the place with her team-mate and close friend, Tiana Metuarau, and together they’re finding their feet – away from their families, flatting in the student capital of New Zealand and playing in arguably the most fervent netball territory in the country.
There's been a lot to adjust to. Away from the court, Savai'inaea has started studying to be a social worker. And she's getting used to people recognising her in the supermarket whenever she’s in Invercargill, the home of the Steel, and wanting to talk netball with her.
There's a lot to talk about: Savai’inaea is truly making her mark in New Zealand's elite tier of netball this season. She’s kind of like that chandelier – adding her own dash of boldness, vibrancy and flair to the young Steel side.
She’s been in the ANZ Premiership for four seasons – the first three with the Pulse – but it’s in the south, Savai’inaea says, she’s discovered what it’s really like to be a professional netballer.
Both she and Metuarau, who’ve known each other since they were 11, are getting considerably more court time after seasons sitting beside each other on the Pulse bench. It’s the reason Savai’inaea left the capital, and it’s understandably changed her view of the game – and her attitude towards it.
“It’s real different compared to the previous years I’ve played. It’s opened my eyes more to the professional way of playing netball,” the quietly-spoken 20-year-old says, sitting in her room.
“Before, I felt like I was going through the motions, training with a team, being on the bench week in, week out. This time around, I’m fully focusing on my preparation for games, and I think I’m a lot more focused than I was before.
“It’s been a big difference to me, and I love it.”
Once a circle defender, Savai’inaea has found her new calling in the midcourt. This season, she’s been switching between wing defence and centre with Kate Heffernan, and she’s been explosive and imposing - yet always smiling - both on attack and defence.
Those are the strengths that could have taken her in any one of three sporting directions when she left school, already a world champion rugby player and a national champion basketballer.
To begin with, growing up in Wellington, Savai’inaea only played netball.
“My dad was sporty – he played a lot of rugby and league. Mum played netball – but mainly just to get the dress or the skirt,” she laughs. “I played netball all through primary and Mum was my coach.”
When she reached Year 9 at St Mary’s College, Savai’inaea picked up basketball and rugby sevens, and stuck with all three through her high school years.
"Just coming down here and being able to showcase that I can play in the midcourt has been good for my self-belief too, that I can do it."
Sometimes, there were clashes. Like in Year 11, when she was pulled three ways. “We had rugby nationals, basketball regionals and netball regionals all in the same week,” she says. “Fortunately, I was allowed to play all three, but I had to jump between them.”
Over the span of that week, she played most of the netball tournament, before leaving to play in the basketball final, and the day after that, starred in the national schools rugby semifinal and final.
A dynamic forward, Savai’inaea was vice-captain of the St Mary’s sevens team who went to Japan in 2017 and won the world youth championship title. She then made the wider sevens squad for the 2018 Youth Olympics; her schoolmate Dhys Faleafaga was part of the New Zealand team who won gold in Argentina, and is now a Black Fern.
Savai’inaea was the top scorer in the national schools basketball final in 2018 when her St Mary’s side denied St Peter’s Cambridge a three-peat victory. Captaining that St Peter’s side was Charlisse Leger-Walker, now a star in US college basketball, who scored 48 points in that final. But it was Savai’inaea who scored the winning points.
She quit both rugby and basketball in her last year at school when she was first chosen in the Pulse squad. “I realised I was naturally good at netball. Honestly, I loved all the sports I used to play, but I thought to myself netball was the best path,” she says.
Nevertheless, Savai’inaea would like to return to rugby one day.
“I always talk about it with Dad, but I’ll only go back to it if I’m fully conditioned to play rugby. It’s a very different sport to netball,” she says. “I think a lot about going to the Olympics – what a cool event to be at one day.”
Savai’inaea had hoped to defend another world title around about now. She was a strong candidate to make the New Zealand U21 netball side to play at the World Youth Cup in Fiji in June 2021. But Covid-19 forced a postponement till December this year, before it was finally canned all together.
She played in the U21 side – alongside Metuarau and their Steel teammate Taneisha Fifita - who came up against the Silver Ferns and New Zealand Men last October, and her goal is to hold her place in that squad again this year.
Having made the decision to leave the Pulse at the end of last season to secure more court-time before the World Youth Cup, Savai’inaea initially wasn’t sure if she wanted to move to the deep south on her own. But when goal attack Metuarau also signed with the Steel (a move that has also paid off for her this season) it made it easier, she admits.
Yet when Savai'inaea and Metuarau were kids, they weren’t on friendly terms.
“Tiana and I always played in opposite teams through primary school, and I was a circle defender so we would always play against each other. There was massive competition between us,” Savai’inaea says. The animosity began to fade in Year 9, when they started making Wellington rep teams together.
“I think we’re pretty close now. With me and her, we can always have honest and open conversations with each other, so it’s nice. Netball has brought me some amazing friends.”
The Steel, sitting in an impressive third on the ANZ Premiership ladder, are certainly adding to her complement.
“What’s really cool is that most of us are around the same age. We’ve got eight girls under 23, and then there’s just Hoochi [Te Huinga Reo Selby-Rickit] and Shan [Shannon Saunders] who are the old ones. Well, they still feel young,” Savai’inaea says.
“My goal this season is to get to know the game a bit better at ANZ Premiership level and learn as much as I can off Hoochi and Shannon.”
Steel coach Reinga Bloxham says Savai'inaea has already proved to be an asset to the side, particularly with her "awesome" work ethic.
"Renee's a quiet achiever who gets on with her job with little fuss. She prefers to contribute by doing rather than saying," Bloxham says. "She works tirelessly on defence and she's steady on attack; the effort she gives doesn’t go unnoticed."
Savai'inaea will always be grateful for the opportunities she got with the Pulse, and the Central Manawa side she captained in 2019 – where she moved from circle defender to midcourter. It was a transition she admits was “pretty difficult”.
“So just coming down here and being able to showcase that I can play in the midcourt has been good for my self-belief too, that I can do it,” she says.
While she prefers wing defence, she’s enjoying feeding the shooters from centre. “It’s been nice switching between me and Kate,” Savai’inaea says. “She’s great on the court, but she’s also one of the funniest people I’ve ever met.”
Moving south has also sparked another switch in Savai’inaea’s life. She had been studying commerce, but when she felt like she was going through the motions in the lectures, she decided to change to a degree in social work at the University of Otago.
“I talked to Mum, because she’s a nurse, and I told her I wanted to do nursing,” she says. “But I can’t do that part-time because of netball, so she suggested social work.
“I’m really enjoying it. It’s put my brain to work when I’m not training or playing netball.”
* The Steel were neck-and-neck with league leaders, the Stars, in their clash on Saturday, until goal shoot George Fisher left the court with concussion; the southerners losing 53-43. The Mystics retained second spot as the steamrolled the Pulse, 64-51, on Sunday.
