Civic reception will honour netball heroes

JILL McKEE/Fairfax Media

TWICE THE JOY: Southland netball captain Wendy Telfer finds a home for the national netball trophy at Stadium Southland yesterday.

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The national champion Southland netball team will be greeted with a civic reception on October 24.

Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt said yesterday he had been keen on a march but instead a civic reception and morning tea — and a date that suited all the netballers — found favour.

The reception will celebrate one of Southland netball's finest moments — the 56-45 win over Auckland-Waitakere in Saturday's final, the first in 49 years. "Wasn't it unbelievable," Mr Shadbolt said yesterday.

"It is incredible, when you look at who they played against (in the final), Auckland combined with Waitakere, there's about half a million people there (compared with) about 100,000 in Southland. Half a million people took on 100,000 — and we won. It's just amazing." Southland captain Wendy Telfer was yesterday finding a home for the national trophy and had been inundated with calls and e-mails of support. The win has added to a brilliant netballing year for Telfer, who was named in the Silver Ferns squad earlier this year. She was already talking of back-to-back wins when Southland hosts the national championships next year.

There isn't too much more time for Telfer to celebrate, however. She heads to Auckland today to play training games against the Silver Ferns, who take on England next week, and still has the chance to make the team to play Australia later this month.

But yesterday she was still revelling in what had been a huge achievement for Southland, as was Netball Southland acting regional manager Rose de Goldi.

"A lot of these players have come through the Southland ranks, through development squads, and they've just been given that opportunity to step up," de Goldi said.

"It was great the region could have that opportunity to watch the game (screened on Sky Sport 2). It just shows you don't ... have to have the stars to pull it off."

- © Fairfax NZ News