GOOD “D”

“Defenders must be able to read the game well. We’re reactive players. It’s about predicting where the ball’s going to end up, what passes are going to be given, reacting to when the ball’s in the air. There’s a lot of reading the game. Some players are born with a defensive insight.

“I’m a defender in the circle, so my aim is to stop shooters from getting goals. Part of it is getting into a shooter’s head and trying to get them to second-guess themselves. If you’re doing that there’s only a 50-50 chance they’ll get the shot in. If you can make them second-guess whether you’re going to tip a shot or reject a shot, you’ve done a good job. In netball, when a team’s in defence, they just want the ball. At the back end you’ve got to be on the ball and backing yourself.”

Sonia Mkloma NSW Swifts Sonia Mkloma NSW Swifts
Images: Getty Images

SHARP SHOOTERS

“There are a lot deadly accurate shooters around. As an international player, I’ve played against Australia, the Kiwis, the Jamaican girls ... You play them in an international forum all the time and there’s some Goal Attacks and Shooters who just don’t miss. If you can get them down to say, a 90 per cent shooting average, you’ve done a good job. When these players are in the game, a lot of the pressure is on your front girls to get the ball before it gets down our end because you know they’re great shooters. There are times when you think, ‘I know I’m not going to stop everything.’ Sometimes it’s a tough and thankless job. Once you know you’re not going to save everything, you just try to stop what you can. Then your mindset is different; you don’t get down if you miss a few intercepts or blocked shots because they only come off sometimes, but you still need to work hard and give yourself the chance.”

FAVE PART

“I enjoy the unit and defence-specific training. When we look at video of our games I get to see where I’ve messed up; I like getting out on the court with smaller groups and working on where I personally need to improve. When I’m out on the court I need to understand what  my partner’s doing. If I know she’s going left, I have to cover right, but that comes with practice and getting to know each other.”

 … LEAST FAVE

“Netball isn’t one of those sports where you’re just running in straight lines. There’s a lot of jumping, explosive changes in direction as well ... In the Swifts’ weights sessions we do squats, jump squats, super sets; we might do a heavy load, then super-set it with a more active movement. We do bench presses, bench throws, jumping onto boxes for height, static jumps, lateral hops over hurdles, just to get our feet moving. It varies. It’s not just about pumping weights. There’s endurance and agility benefits from gym work as well as the obvious strength improvements. In saying all this, weight training is definitely my least favourite part of our training regime! After ten years of that, combined with the actual netball stuff, I’m over the weights. When we’re given our gym regime, I’m like, ‘Ugghh.’

“We tend to do three-five reps of each exercise, depending on what it is, for four sets. There are about ten exercises we do, but some are super-setted, so we do them back to back; it might be jump squats supersetted with squats to bench. The Swifts’ gym sessions usually last for about an hour and a half.”

TO THE VIDEO

“We tend to have video sessions first thing after the weekend. Our first courtwork session for the week will consist of 15-20 minutes’ of video work. We’ll look at the game we just played. We have special video analysts who break down the game. They’ll show us important statistics; how many centre passes were received, where we threw most balls away, where shooters shot the most from, how many intercepts, how many penalties ... Quite in-depth detail about each game. In that video session we’ll talk about ways of bringing the ball back out and bringing the game down the other end if we’re being cornered; basically looking at where we messed up in the game ‒ which is horrible. We’ll look at some of the stuff that worked well, too, and take it forward to the next game.”