Two months after Australia's gold medal-winning Commonwealth Games performance, midcourter Kimberlee Green is ready for a little personal redemption.
As the Diamonds dismantled the Silver Ferns 58-40 in winning the Glasgow netball gold early last month, an out-of-form Green was left stranded on the sideline cheering her teammates on.
She's got no problem that: "I wasn't having a great campaign, and they need to put the best people out on court, so I think the coaches made the right decision there."
But it didn't sit well with the combative and versatile midcourter, and she's keen to make a bigger impact against the Silver Ferns in the first Constellation Cup Test in Invercargill on Thursday.
A couple of niggling calf injuries leading into Glasgow restricted Green's time on court, and she found it difficult to rediscover the timing, links and pinpoint feeding which had previously worked so well for her.
"Sometimes it works for you, and sometimes it doesn't, and for me it just wasn't working," she said.
Green took time post-Glasgow to travel around Europe, joining her teammates in taking a long-due break from netball to recharge the batteries ahead of the run-in to next year's world championship in Sydney.
"I've been doing a bit of fitness work around Europe - having the break gives you a completely refreshed sort of mindset coming back in," Green said.
Running on the donkey tracks of Santorini, or around the back streets of Venice has proven mentally relaxing while still keeping a physical edge as the Diamonds prepare to defend the world title they've held since 2007.
It's been a year since the Diamonds lost a netball game, and it was the Silver Ferns who inflicted the 55-51 loss in Invercargill.
Australia have proven invincible since then, but Green says there's no chance the Diamonds are taking New Zealand lightly after Glasgow's 18-goal thrashing.
"We always expect the Ferns to come out firing and we know how hard they can come back after a loss.
"We're expecting nothing but the best."
Share
