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Sunshine Coast Lightning are just one win away from fulfilling a pre-season prediction that they would win Australia's Super Netball competition in the club's inaugural season.
Before the start of this year's revamped national netball league, Lightning CEO Danielle Smith boldly predicted the debutant club would go one better than their rugby league brothers and part-owners Melbourne Storm by taking the title at the first attempt.
Smith laughs when I remind her of her prediction from earlier this year, now just days out from a grand final.
How to listen
- Super Netball's grand final is at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre on Saturday at 7:00pm AEST
- Broadcast on ABC Sunshine Coast 90.3FM or 95.3FM
- Stream via ABC Extra on the app or online at Grandstand Digital
She admits to later wondering if she had been too ambitious in angling for a debutant win for the Sunshine Coast's first national elite sporting team.
"I've sort of had a few dreams about what it might be like. I think it would be absolutely outstanding and phenomenal if we can win it," she said.
Win or lose the grand final against the Giants, the Lightning have come a long way fast and whatever the result on Saturday night the club and its supporters will give the first season a tick of approval.
Culture central to success
On reflection, Smith's forecast may not have been as rash as it seems with the Melbourne Storm's on and off-field winning culture used as a template for the Lightning.
Experienced, successful and respected New Zealand coach Noeline Taurua was lured across The Ditch as the club's first recruit.
Smith said it was a critically important move by the fledgling club.
"The coach is pretty much the most important appointment you will make in any professional sporting franchise and we were really confident of Noeline's abilities," she said.
"We'd obviously done a lot of research on her, we'd heard a lot of good positive messages about her and just the way that she can bring a team together.
"She's not only an excellent technical coach but she is a fantastic people person in terms of bringing the best out in the players, making sure they're happy off the court, a real strong focus on developing the right team culture.
"All those sort of things we saw as the complete package with Noeline."
With a blank canvas, Taurua and the club drew up a wish list of players.
"We basically went through each position and who would be our first choice, our second choice, our third choice, but she also had to firstly speak to each of those players and make sure they were going to be the right culture fit," Smith said.
"It's incredibly important. You don't want someone in the team that's going to be disruptive or go against team culture and all that sort of thing. So it was definitely really important to get the right sort of player off the court as well as on."
Players eager to ride the Lightning
With the enticement of the Coast lifestyle, Taurua as coach, the high performance facilities and boutique stadium embedded within the University of the Sunshine Coast, and the link to the Melbourne Storm, Smith said they signed "close to 100 per cent of their first choice players".
Replicating the Storm's 'big three' of Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk and Billy Slater, the Lightning attracted three of the world's best netballers to the Coast to form the team's spine.
Diamonds goal shooter Caitlin Bassett, New Zealand mid-courter Laura Langman and England player and goal keeper Geva Mentor, serving as inaugural captain, were among the first to buy into the dream being sold by the Lightning.
Taurua said signing the trio was "massive" but securing "supporting actresses" was just as crucial.
"The Melbourne Storm pretty much had a model that we could work through, a model that they have used successfully in the NRL, and that's building around a spine but also looking at the mix and the chemistry of the players both on and off the court," Taurua said.
"And looking for the younger ones coming through, so that we always have new players churning through.
"Their model was awesome and it's something that I've never experienced or had any access to.
"That was a great introduction for me, in the professionalism of Storm and what they have."
She also bought into the dream and challenge of moving to Australia which was not without some risk.
"I'm in the same boat as players. You make decisions in your life and pretty much with the ANZ Championship finishing last year I've been-there-done-that in regards to coaching just New Zealand sides.
"[I was] looking for all these challenges to be a better coach and to be in an environment that would embrace those philosophies of how I work.
"I can see so much that we can do with this team and that we can improve, and once we get our feet back on the ground — I think people haven't seen nothing yet," Taurua said.
It is another bold prediction, but if what the Lightning have produced this year on a short and hurried preparation is evidence, the Kiwi coach's words are likely to send a shiver through rival teams for next season.
Topics: netball, sport, maroochydore-4558
First posted