There's hardly a higher netballing compliment than to receive a flattering text from Norma Plummer - which must mean Sharni Layton is on the right track.
Australia's former coach singled out Layton as one of the Diamonds' shiniest assets at the Netball World Cup, saying the 27-year-old defender's game has excelled out of sight.
Plummer selected Layton in her 2011 world championship-winning squad as a green 23-year-old in her first year in the ANZ Championship, and barely a month after making her international debut.
While praising the goal keeper and occasional goal defence and wing defence's long-championed versatility, the veteran coach said the courageous and physical Melbourne native needed more on-court maturity to compliment her raw talent.
Until this year.
"I texted her halfway through the year," said Plummer, who is mentoring South Africa at the world titles in Sydney.
"In one (NSW Swifts) game she had a blinder and I just text her and said, `Now that was the mature game'.
"You can just see it coming through. It's not all brawn and wow! It's really working the game, working the player, getting the interception."
Plummer says she likes to encourage players she's handled in the past.
"But I only do it when I think they deserve it," she clarified.
Plummer, who also coached Australia to world championships glory in 2007, reiterated that she's backing Australia to win a third consecutive title in Sydney.
The 70-year said her successor Lisa Alexander had picked a squad that is "solid right through", and cited Kim Green's trans-Tasman season with the Swifts as one of the midcourter's best.
The depth is there, she believes, to hold off perennial threats New Zealand, England and Jamaica.
But how does this line-up compare with her 2011 team in the versatility stakes?
"I was just as good, if not better."
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