Netball queen Noeline ‘THERE’S NOTHING BETTER THAN WINNING!’
As I talk to Dame Noeline Taurua over Zoom, we’re all in lockdown and confined to our bubbles, but the Silver Ferns coach’s bubble is bigger and busier than most, chockfull of whānau sharing her beachside home near Tauranga.
“I’ve started running,” she tells me. “Every second day, I do 5km and then 10km once a week. It’s a shuffle, really, but it gives me some ‘me time’. Lots of things come to me when I’m running.”
She’s just finished a 10km run when we catch up online – and she looks as fresh as a daisy.
Noeline is hailed as the woman who saved New Zealand netball. She was at the helm when the Ferns achieved one of the great sporting comebacks to win the World Cup in 2019. It came just months after ignominious defeat at the Commonwealth Games, when they came in fourth.
She is a fighter. “I love winning. There’s nothing better! I love feeling the process – all the things that
