'I wasn't backing down': The fiery rant that ignited a netball rivalry
Netball star Geva Mentor reveals what fuelled her ‘rant’ at the Firebirds, which sparked a heated rivalry in Queensland.
Geva Mentor for PlayersVoice
This is an edited extract from Leap: Making the jump to take netball to the top of the world by Geva Mentor (RRP $29.99, Hachette), out now.
We beat Vixens in Melbourne, which secured us fourth spot, meaning we had to go to Brisbane and play the Firebirds in the knockout final.
Straight after the Vixens game I was asked what I thought about our next game. I was quite honest. I said it would be a great contest, that the team had some real firepower and that there was a great state rivalry growing between us.
As the journalist quizzed me some more, I got a bit more heated and said I found it disrespectful that the Firebirds hadn’t acknowledged us as another Queensland team. We’d been largely ignored. We were providing another pathway into elite netball . . . I think I started to rant.
These feelings had been building up all season; as captain I am privy to information and felt some of the decisions the Firebirds made were a deliberate dig at us, that they wanted us to play second fiddle.
Their season launch was in Mooloolaba, our home town on the Sunshine Coast. They had clinics around our area and their slogan was, ‘Queensland is a one-team state’. I found it so disrespectful and decided to speak fairly and honestly. Enough was enough.
It got picked up massively in the media. They said I’d issued a ‘war-cry!’ The next day the CEO of Netball Queensland, Catherine Clark, felt she had to issue a public response, something meaningless like, ‘If Geva wants to sit down and discuss things . . .
Our CEO was not happy. She said, ‘This is not how we operate, Geva!’ But I wasn’t backing down. ‘To be honest, Danielle,’ I replied, ‘I’m standing up for this team, something we should have done a long time ago.’ I was on my soapbox, but I’d had some really nice messages from Melbourne Storm and our owners, and the University of the Sunshine Coast.
They backed me, they were happy to get people fired up, more bums on seats – although they also told me I had to back it up when we played Firebirds! I had support from the right people and that’s what mattered.
I ask you, is that any way to make a player feel valued? Feel wanted? I’d captained the side to victory in their debut season…
The week before the match was tough. There were lots of reporters wanting me to fuel the fire even more. We travelled down to Brisbane and straight away knew it was going to be a feisty atmosphere.
They had this beer tent right behind the posts with drunks shouting ‘Queensland! Firebirds!’ every time our shooters were nearby.
Yet, our fans, our minimal 20 per cent of the spectators, utterly blew away the whole stadium. Everyone was amazed at the noise. It was brilliant. Our fans were the eighth player and got us over the line. We won 57–56 and it was just crazy.
I had ‘talked the talk’ and we showed the opposition they needed to show us respect.