Will the Stars realign after their shock first loss of netball's premiership season? And can Maia Wilson get her shooting mojo back? Suzanne McFadden looks for the answers.
Maia Wilson was trying to put a finger on why her Stars came crashing down to earth, while her own left pinky was sticking out at a right angle to her hand.
The captain’s finger was dislocated near the end of the Stars’ shock 13-goal loss to the Pulse on Sunday – halting the Northerners’ five-game unbeaten streak in this year’s ANZ Premiership.
It was painless, she says – the bent digit, not the defeat.
Wilson doesn’t want to point a finger at the haka, ‘Te Tira Whetu’, the Stars composed and performed before the game for the first time. But she admits it had put some of the players out of their comfort zone, making them “vulnerable”.
“Kudos to them for really stepping up – it was nerve-wracking to do it in front of a home crowd [a record 1300 for Bruce Pulman Arena] and on live TV,” Wilson says. “I hope we don’t go into the game debrief and say: ‘Oh, we were focusing on the haka’. That’s my little worry.”
And Wilson is also looking at her own hands, after she was sent to the bench when things started to slide for the Stars in the third quarter. It was a rare call taking the outstanding Silver Ferns goal shoot out of the game, and one which Stars coach Kiri Wills admits was hard to make. But Wilson understands why.
It’s her shooting technique she blames for a fitful start to the season.
“The ball’s not coming off the finger that it normally would,” says Wilson, who’s shooting at 83 percent accuracy after six rounds of the league. In her golden year of 2020, she was hovering around 90 percent. But against the Pulse, and their rangy defence of Kelly Jury and Fijian international Kelera Nawai, she missed six of her 29 attempts.
“I know I’m a blimmin’ good shooter; I back myself. But this is my own problem, and it’s a hard pill to swallow when it keeps happening week after week.”
Yet there have been good things to come out of Wilson’s blip. Jamie Hume is having the best of her six seasons in the league, relieving some of the pressure on Wilson at goal attack. And 22-year-old Amorangi Malesala took her opportunity as Wilson’s replacement at goal shoot on Sunday to show she’s comfortable shooting from anywhere.
Regardless of the Stars’ unexpected fall, you couldn’t deny the Pulse – the defending champions who until that match had notched up just one win – played a superior game.
It was the first time any team has been able to quell the Stars’ attack - midcourters Claire Kersten and Maddy Gordon were all over their Stars opponents, Gina Crampton and Mila Reulu-Buchanan.
“What the Pulse did really well was change our timing, and they had a massive three foot mark,” Wilson says, pacing up and down the court immediately after the loss. “It makes it a lot harder for our attacking end to have vision, to see in to the shooters. Sometimes we were guilty of not taking our hands and feet to the ball.
“It’s hard, too, when you have some really good defenders and the ball goes just past their fingertips.” And when your veteran defender, Anna Harrison, who’s been anchoring your defence this season, limps off with an ankle injury midway through the second quarter.
Wills will have the Stars working harder this week on adjusting to the man-on-man defence the Pulse perfected. “We just kept running on the same line and hoping the ball would come to us,” she says.
“But it was a good time for this to happen. We don’t want it further down the line. We have three big games next - Tactix, Pulse and Mystics - so we have to come back out firing.”
The Stars remain at the top of the ladder, with nine rounds still to play. But the Mystics are now within a point after a come-from-behind 67-59 victory over the Magic on Monday night. The Tactix, now third, continue their rise after a comprehensive win over the Steel, 60-50.
But Wills believes she has the team to make this loss but a minor glitch in their season.
“Everyone is asking why we’ve got it together this season. Well, you have your spine in Scar [Harrison], Gina and Maia, but actually it’s the others who've lifted around them and maintained the high standards,” she says.
Players like Hume. The versatile 25-year-old attacker from Clyde was with the Steel and the Mystics but had never really stamped her mark before coming to the Stars last season.
She’s become the starting goal attack since Silver Fern Monica Falkner injured her knee in round one – the same knee where she ruptured her ACL in 2019 – and has yet to return. Now Hume feels she’s finding her niche.
“Maia definitely carried me through a lot of last season, and because she is such a solid option in the back, she was happy to do that,” she says. “But now I feel like I’m really growing in my role. I’m feeling a lot more confident at goal attack – being able to play the courtcraft outside [the circle] and to shoot.”
She puts it down to working on “good feedback” from the Silver Ferns coaching duo, Dame Noeline Taurua and Debbie Fuller, while she’s been in the Silver Ferns development squad.
“And I’ve got to be one of the luckiest goal attacks in New Zealand – I’ve got Gina next to me and Maia in behind me. Their input is just invaluable.”
Wilson says Hume is “shining like she deserves to… She’s finding confidence in something she’s always had. It’s beautiful to see.”
On the other hand, Wilson doesn’t think it’s confidence she’s lacking in her own game under the hoop.
“It’s not my game play, it’s just my shot. It’s funny because my medium to long-range shot is fine,” she says. “I don’t think it’s about the captaincy. It’s more the internal pressure I put on myself, which is really hard. But I feel like each week has got better for me.
“I’m trying to pull myself out of this rut and go back to what was a really high 12 months last year. I knew it wasn’t always going to be that high.
“I’ve been told I’ve helped to create a really good environment. But when I’m not coming to the plate as much as I should be, that probably diminishes it a bit.”
Wilson, who’s still just 23, played a part in bringing the Stars’ haka to life. It was composed by her mum, Karena Stephens-Wilson, and Malesala.
Last year, Wilson - of Te Rarawa and Te Waiohua descent - called for an indigenous round in the ANZ Premiership to showcase New Zealand netball’s diversity.
This year, round five of this season featured the Heritage Round. The Stars weren't able to do their haka before taking on the Magic – but perhaps more fittingly, Te Tira Whetu made its debut at home with an impassioned performance, which the Pulse answered with their waiata, Manawataki.
“We wanted the haka to pay homage as a newer club to a region that’s heavily influenced by Māori, especially our south Auckland community. I’m really proud of it,” Wilson says.
“It’s cool to create something as special as a haka, which is a taonga [a cultural treasure], and to get more te reo Māori me ngā tikanga [Maori language and tradition] throughout netball in New Zealand.
“The next week will be a test to see if we can bring ourselves together like the unity we talk about – te kotahitanga – in our haka. We shall see how that goes.”
She'll have her fingers crossed.
