Netball’s common cry - Like Ja, Aussie netballers cry for greater recognition

All-conquering Aussies, like Jamaica, seek greater recognition

BY DANIA BOGLE Observer staff reporter

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

THOUGH they are the world's top-ranked team with many World Championship and Commonwealth Games titles under their belt, Australia's netballers are still fighting for perhaps the greatest prize yet — due recognition.

They are not alone, as Jamaica's own netball boss Marva Bernard is known to have advocated tirelessly for the same reason for her Sunshine Girls, ranked number four in the world today.

"We still fight for identification... we still do not get the recognition," said team manager Margaret Molina, who is in the island with the Australia Diamonds ahead of the three-Test Supreme Ventures Sunshine Series against their Jamaican counterparts at the National Indoor Sports Centre (NISC).

Molina said that the sport of netball still lags behind Australian Rules Football, rugby, association football and cricket on the totem pole of respected sports in the world's smallest continent.

"The male sports get all the recognition in Australia," she told the Observer.

The former player, who along with her sister Stella, was a member of the Australia netball team that won the world title in Kingston in 1971, said she and her sister got a lot of financial support from their father to help them survive as back then players had to balance part-time or full-time jobs with extensive training.

Molina, who has been managing the team since 2003, said that things had improved a lot since the introduction

of the trans-Tasman semi-professional league in Australia and New Zealand in 2008 which meant that many players were now at least able to draw down a meagre salary which still pales in comparison to what players in the top

male-dominated sports in Australia make.

Molina was clear that the team got a lot of support, but admitted it was perhaps not commensurate with their performances over the years.

"It's difficult because we don't get the same sort of funding as an Olympic sport... we are well looked after, I'm not saying that we're not, but when you see that we still struggle to get $30,000 or $40,000 for our girls," Molina told the Observer.

The Jamaica Netball Association (JNA) has been at pains to make their case that the senior netballers continue to compete and manage to remain in the top three or four in the world despite having to balance playing and training schedules with full-time jobs, school and family life.

In addition, they struggle to find the funding to keep their programmes going.

Molina said the Australia Diamonds, who won the last World Championships in Auckland, New Zealand in 2007 and were silver medallists at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India, managed to stay on top despite the challenges through mere love of the game.

"We all play just because we love the game and you wanted to play first of all for your state and then your country and it's a kind of a progression and so few people get the opportunity to play for your country that it's a privilege," she said.

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Netball’s common cry - Like Ja, Aussie netballers cry for greater recognition