The sacrifices driving netball mums back to the top

“I just thought, ‘Wow, you can actually do it all’,’’ says the NSW Swifts Academy athlete. “I saw that you don’t have to lose yourself when you become a mum. You can be a mum first and have a career in netball and there’s now pathways no matter where you are in your journey in netball to return and return safely, as well.’’

This year, Miller, 25, has noted Bueta’s career-best form: Not just for the Firebirds, but the Diamonds, where, with Bobby in the stands in Birmingham, the superstar shooter helped propel Australia to Commonwealth Games gold with a 100 per cent shooting game in the final against Jamaica.

“I feel like something changes in you and I don’t know what it is, but the passion and the love for it, she’s got it all,’’ says Miller.

“She’s got her beautiful family and she’s able to excel in her career and her hobby at the same time, so it’s incredible to watch and it’s truly inspiring.’’

Which brings us to, of all places, the Gippsland Regional Indoor Sports Stadium, and if this month’s revamped Australian Netball Championships are intended to be a talent nursery for the next generation of elite players, then there’s also a nursery theme of a different kind.

Triple world champion Nat Medhurst will be making her post-partum comeback in the presence of toddler Edison and baby daughter Harriet.

Her West Coast Fever Reserves teammate Ingrid Moss (nee Colyer) will have her mum and five-month-old son Emerson along for the long cross-continental ride, having eased back to competition via a handful of games in the West Australian Netball League.

Meanwhile, Miller’s son Talanoa, whose name translates to “wise listener” in Tongan (from one mother to another, let’s see how that works out) will be back home in Sydney with his dad and grandparents. Perhaps tuning into the live streaming and, his mum hopes, recognising the familiar figure in the red dress.

Through elite netballers such as Giants’ defender April Brandley and Firebirds’ midcourter Kim Ravaillion, Miller has current examples of mums-as-SSN-stars. In Bueta, of course, a Firebird, she has a current Diamonds’ example who combines height with athleticism and has brought a new dimension to the sport.

“She is changing the game in so many ways and in such positive ways. She’s just superhuman, Gretel,’’ says Miller, 25, a Sydney primary school teacher and Wagga Wagga native who has also represented the ACT.

The Latrobe Valley’s August 22-28 hosting of the rebooted version of the old national titles will be the single mum’s longest stretch away from her child.

The separation will be tough.

But, well, silver linings, etc.

“What I’m looking forward to is having some sleep!’’ Miller says with a laugh. “Seven consecutive sleeps. I can’t wait for that part.’’

*****

We know all about Medhurst, one of Australia’s most decorated netballers turned commentator and CODE Sports columnist. We knew a fair bit about West Australian Moss when, as Ingrid Colyer, she was one of Super Netball’s smallest players who nevertheless tallied 70 games before rupturing her ACL in 2020.

Miller? Not so much, but the 190-centimetre shooter is a NSW pathway product with experience via the Darters and Waratahs of the ANC’s former 12-year incarnation as the Australian Netball League.

A past teammate of Keira Austin, Sophie Dwyer and many more, Miller was an Australian 19/U squad member, a 2018 Swifts training partner, and attended the national Tall Players Camp at the AIS [qualifying height 189-198cm, so just snuck in].

Then Covid happened. Netball was on hold. Miller became pregnant with Talanoa.

“Not being able to play, and watching my friends and watching the game, I really missed the joy of it and I was determined to come back,’’ says Miller, who always planned to return, although other opinions were mixed.

“Some people wouldn’t ask and just assumed [I was finished], and some people were like, ‘Yeah, get back into it, it’s gonna take a while, be easy on your body’, and I guess they underestimated the ability to come back.

“So that was tough, but I just found my people and the supportive people who would come down and help me run and pass the ball and do the extra with me. You’ve just got to find your tribe, I guess, to build you back up and build that confidence back up.’’

Six months after Talanoa’s birth, Miller returned to Swifts’ training as an invitee. Felt happy. Welcome. Supported. Confident she could return.

A couple of months later, at Ken Rosewall Arena in the all-NSW Academy curtain-raiser to the Giants v Swifts main event, it was game time.

“It felt amazing to step back onto the court. I was very proud of how my body allowed me to return to the game that I have loved playing ever since I was a little girl.’’

Felt good. Strong. Knew she would get stronger. Needed to.

“It was funny. When I first came back to netball I felt like my feet couldn’t really catch up to my brain, and I was turning a lot slower, but I actually feel now I’m starting to get my speed back and having more smarts about my playing style, whether I’m holding or moving, and how to connect with the players around me as well.’’

Things are different, though. Motherhood has brought physical and mental changes.

“I’m tougher and pushing myself more to reach those goals because I think you really realise the sacrifice you’re making to be there and you want to maximise the time that you are there,’’ she says.

“In saying that it is also the reverse. Being there brings you that little bit of joy that you can prioritise being a mum first, but also if you have the support and determination you can also have your own hobby and career now in netball, with Gretel [showing] that you don’t have to wait until the end of your career to become a mum.’’

*****

As most of the triumphant Diamonds’ extended squad members holiday in summery Europe or North America, bless them, 10 teams from the six states and Canberra — but not the Northern Territory — will be in chillier Traralgon for the tournament that is effectively a rebadged nationals.

The annual state-v-state round-robin-plus-finals format was replaced at Open level in 2008 by the ANL — the feeder league that ran concurrently with the trans-Tasman and then SSN competitions to provide exposure and experience. Operating much like the VFL does in relation to the AFL, only in a more condensed form.

Covid changed all that and, after being cancelled in 2020-21, a second-tier competition has emerged from hibernation with two squads each from the three most populous states — aligned with the Vixens, Magpies, Swifts, Giants, Lightning and Firebirds — plus the Fever seconds, Thunderbirds-affiliated Southern Force and Tasmania.

Miller was aware that 235-gamer Medhurst would be in Traralgon, but not that Moss was a member of the mothers’ club. “So that’s pretty cool,’’ she says. “I think all mums just have this unspoken respect for one another when they see each other.

“Like, this has just been more stressful managing Talanoa and work and we train five times a week so I’ve been so lucky to have such amazing parents who put up their hands and take him at that witching hour and put him to bed and I come home and he’s asleep. I’ve been very very lucky with the support I have.’’

Medhurst’s partner Sam Butler and their two children will be staying in a rented apartment in Traralgon as the 38-year-old plays her first official match since pregnancy finished her four-club career in unhappy circumstances at the Magpies.

“Fever has gone from never having a mother, or babies, to now having two of us,’’ says the 86-Test Diamond.

“It’s made me so much more patient being a mum. Definitely things used to frustrate me, so patience is a massive one, and your perspective just really changes around what’s really important.

“I’ve loved being back in the environment. I’m still as competitive as anything, and I think because I haven’t had a nine-month build up and I haven’t played netball since, technically, the end of 2019, my whole intent around all my training is very switched on and getting the best out of it when I’m there…

“I was like, ‘I’ve got a month to get myself back to fitness and remember how to throw and catch and shoot goals’.’’

Medhurst hopes to guide and teach the Fever youngsters, while excited to be playing in front of her own growing family for the first time.

“I know [Edison and Harriet] won’t have any idea around what’s going on, but for me I think it will be something I’ll really cherish,’’ she says, while in admiration of Bueta et al.

“You see these players like Renae [Ingles] coming back, Rav’s been in phenomenal form, Apey [Brandley] messaged the other day and she’s gone, ‘How the hell are you doing it with two kids? Doing it with one is hard enough!’

“I look at these women and they are incredibly inspiring, and as mums we don’t get to really stop and think sometimes how strong we become being parents and how that helps with other things you’re doing in your life.’’

Welcome to the Australian Netball Championships.

Mums. Children. All.