Geitz’s and her fellow Firebirds’ preparation has them edging closer to glory ... step by step. Geitz’s and her fellow Firebirds’ preparation has them edging closer to glory ... step by step. Images: Trent Mitchell

Knees and Ankles

“When it comes to netball, everyone just says, ‘Ouch – knees and ankles.’ And, yes, at a younger level it can be rough because the girls catch the ball and then make such an effort to stop. But once you get a bit older, you can run-off with a pass, as long as your grounded foot doesn’t move. “But there are still a lot of knee and ankle injuries. We do a huge amount of proprioception work, balancing or squatting on wobble boards, making sure our quads, calves and hammies are strong enough to maintain balance in our joints.“And, of course, before each training session and each game we’ll have our ankles and knees strapped. I never used to strap when I was younger, but now I’ve become so reliant on it. If I don’t strap now, I just think, ‘My goodness. This is scary.’ You feel so fragile. Some people say we rely too much on our strapping and our ankles get weak as a result. But I don’t really buy into that. I’ve been lucky with my knees and ankles so far in my career. Touch wood …”

Food Watch

“We have a great nutritionist who also works with the national team, the Diamonds – Kerry Leech. She’s awesome. She comes in often to take our skinfolds – to measure muscle to fat ratios – to see where we’re at physically. Everything’s monitored.“We don’t actually follow a strict diet plan, it’s more up to you as a professional athlete to be wary of what you’re putting into your body. And if you’re training so hard, then obviously you want to reap the rewards, so eating properly tends to be automatic. But if you’re concerned about your diet, there’s certainly help there: you can have Kerry write you up an eating plan, or you can keep a food diary and she can monitor your intake that way. Some girls place a huge emphasis on all that, while others don’t pay so much attention. Personally, I tend to find diet a pretty simple thing: keep the carbs up, get the right fats in, drink plenty of water.”

Eye in the Sky

“Particularly when you get to the Australian team, there’s a huge emphasis on video analysis. Every time we take the court against a certain team, we’ll do hours of video analysis on them. Everything’s broken down. It’s amazing what some of these video analysts can bring up. It’s crazy. “We can watch, say, all the long-court movements from a certain game, watching the ball come down from the baseline. Or we can watch centre passes, or we can watch how their shooters are moving in the circle, how their defenders are moving in the circle … It’s a great thing for an athlete. You draw so much information from watching other players like that.”

– Aaron Scott