“The Diamonds are getting used to losing.” These words, from Netball Australia board chair Liz Ellis, cut deeply. But while that could have been a scathing assessment of Sunday’s 18-goal loss to New Zealand that saw the Silver Ferns take an unbeatable 3-0 series lead, it in fact came from 2021 – the last time the Diamonds lost the Constellation Cup.
Perhaps those words provided the team with the spark they needed, or maybe it was simply a team that was rusty from two years of being in and out of lockdown, taking their time to adapt to a new coach. But from there, the Diamonds went on to win back Commonwealth Games gold in 2022 and the Netball World Cup in 2023 – both of which they had lost by a solitary goal in the previous cycle.
