‘Sense of fear’: Silver Ferns coach stand-down details revealed as explosive claim sparks fresh anger

There was a murky part of the Dame Noeline Taurua v Netball New Zealand saga that the governing body really didn’t want the master coach to say out loud.

She did anyway.

“My minder that I’m actually with told me not to say, ‘You don’t know’,” Taurua told Morning Report, as she broke her silence in a string of interviews with NZ media. “The specifics around why [I was stood down], I don’t know.”

Get all the latest netball news, highlights and analysis delivered straight to your inbox with Fox Sports Sportmail. Sign up now!!!

Already, such statements may have landed her in hot water.

The New Zealand Herald reported that “some players are unhappy with Taurua’s claim that she is unaware of the particulars”. RNZ reported that Netball NZ is examining whether Taurua has breached the terms of her reinstatement as Silver Ferns coach.

“We can’t comment on what action may be taken,” said a statement given to RNZ.

Further muddying the waters, Taurua then told RNZ that she had in fact received a letter from Netball NZ explaining why she had been stood down, saying: “I mean, the detail of the letter is very clear to me.”

Having been stood down in September, amid complaints about the team environment from up to seven players and after failed talks with Netball NZ in the week prior, Taurua was reinstated last month but the arrangement appears incredibly fragile.

After a 51-day absence, she is not leading the team’s current tour of the UK and has been emotional when giving her account of being exiled. When the Ferns played South Africa and Australia recently, she could not bear to watch, only tuning in for the final Test against the Diamonds.

She has also said that if the find the situation untenable upon her return, she will leave.

“What matters to me is the legacy of the Silver Ferns and the legacy of our game and the people that I work with,” Taurua told Nine to Noon.

“If I feel that I don’t have the support of the people that I work with — and I can’t tell you when that will be — I’m happy to walk.

“But I’m not in that position yet. Because it’s just new that I’ve come back into the mix.”

Speaking to RNZ In Depth, she twice broke down in tears when discussing her ordeal.

“It’s been terrible, it’s been a terrible experience,” Taurua said.

“My name’s been put out there without me being able to say anything. I’ve taken it all.

“While I was stood down, I was just worrying about what was right in front of me. I couldn’t even think about what was the next day. Couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, a lot of times...”

Whether the 2019 World Cup winner can start afresh, and whether she can reunited the playing group, remains to be seen.

While Taurua has committed to resolving issues around the team environment, she has also not admitted to any fault. The players’ association has been blamed for overblowing the issues, while Netball NZ chief executive Jennie Wyllie has been accused of being led by their version of events, and her leadership is under heavy scrutiny.

An anonymous players’ representative told RNZ: “I just don’t know how we move on from here, I really don’t.”

READ MORE

‘Damage done’: Kiwi coach’s reputation takes hit as netball return remains unclear

‘Netball will be better for this’: CEO defends sorry saga as master coach reinstated

NZ star reveals backlash to emotional coach address... and ongoing quiet tribute to ‘Noels’

REPORT DETAILS FINALLY EMERGE

While Taurua is claiming that she has been left in the dark on the details around complaints from players, and has had no direct conversations with any players about the issues, claims from a review into her tenure have now been aired.

The complaints stem from a training camp in Sydney during January and were made anonymously. After they were relayed by the New Zealand Netball Players’ Association to Netball NZ, the governing body commissioned a review led by former New Zealand Cricket high-performance chief Bryan Stronach.

Findings of the review have now been outed by Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan, who said that “fear and psychological safety” headlined multiple complaints about Taurua’s leadership. Specific instances have not been detailed.

“A strong theme was a sense of fear within the environment. Players talked about being scared to speak up, scared to make mistakes, scared to ask questions and scared to be themselves,” said du Plessis-Allan, reading from the report.

“The fear was not described as one-off or occasional. It has been around for a long time.

“Some shared that they don’t feel like they can give honest feedback because it won’t be received well or because it will come back on them later.

“The source of fear seems to come from a few things: inconsistent reactions from leaders, unclear expectations and a history of seeing others shut down or left out after speaking up. Some players describe feeling like they were always walking on eggshells.

“Many players talked about a constant undertone of not being good enough. Even when feedback was meant to help, it often came across as negative or critical.

“This led to players feeling like they were always trying to avoid failure instead of reaching for their best. They described an environment where the tone can be quite intense and the feedback is more about what’s wrong than what’s working.

“Some shared that they began to second-guess everything or withdraw a bit just to stay out of the firing line.”

Still relaying the report, du Plessis-Allan said that “inconsistency and shifting standards” were another leadership issue, and that they fluctuated with the fortunes of the team. Contrary to Taurua’s reputation of being an unerringly hardline coach on fitness, it was claimed that some players were held to different standards.

“Players noticed that the behaviour and mood of the coaching and support staff can change noticeably depending on whether the team is winning or not.

“When results are going well, the environment feels more relaxed and positive, but when the team is not performing, expectations shift suddenly, and the tone becomes more intense and critical.

“There was also a sense that individual players are treated differently. Some are held accountable for small things, while others are not challenged on bigger issues. Another example was the fitness standard and how some were held accountable to it and others not.

“It was clear that the players believe in the importance of high standards. Players acknowledged they don’t always meet the standards and they want to be held accountable when that does happen.

“The concern was not about the existence of standards, but about how they are implemented and communicated. When standards feel unclear or inconsistently applied, it undermines the purpose.”

In the failed talks that preceded Taurua being stood down, RNZ reported that: “Taurua and her coaching team of Debbie Fuller and Briony Akle pushed back, forcefully rejecting the findings and the process of the review.” Each side — Taurua’s camp and Netball NZ — have blamed the other for an agreement not being struck on new and improved player conditions before Taurua was sensationally suspended.

CAN PLAYERS BE BROUGHT BACK INTO THE FOLD?

It remains unclear who made the complaints about Taurua. The claims were anonymous, but reportedly came from up to seven players, and most have kept quiet on the matter.

Of the current team, only superstar shooter Grace Nweke has consistently made a point of voicing support for Taurua; or ‘Noels’, as she has referred to her in emotional public comments. Nweke has since said that she should have made clear she was speaking only for herself, not the team, as players had varying relationships with Taurua.

A number of players have made themselves unavailable for Silver Ferns duty over the past 18 months. They include Gina Crampton, Jane Watson, Te Paea Selby-Rickit, Tiana Metuarau, Maia Wilson and former captain Ameliaranne Ekenasio. That is not to suggest that they were complainants.

Just how broken Taurua’s relationship is with certain players is unclear. A Netball NZ high performance official, also speaking anonymously, made the remarkable claim to RNZ that Taurua was not stood down as coach because of player complaints, but because of how she responded to them.

“It’s really not that confusing, but all the outside noise has made it confusing. The key thing that no one seems to get is, Noeline was not stood down because of any player complaints,” the high performance official said.

“She was stood down because of how she responded to the issues that were raised, which was to go on the attack herself.

“When you refuse to accept there’s problems or take any accountability, then it doesn’t leave [Netball NZ] with anywhere to go.”

As aforementioned, complainants are reportedly angry that Taurua has claimed she does not know any particulars of why she was stood down. Taurua has not only seen the report of the Stronach review, she has gone through the findings with the author — but insists she has done nothing wrong.

While the Sydney training trip was the catalyst for a formal complaint, problems reportedly go back as far as the 2023 World Cup in which the Silver Ferns placed fourth; their worst-ever result. “Privately, players were confused and frustrated by a game plan one pundit dubbed ‘bumper-car netball’,” RNZ reported.

In Sydney, an anonymous observer told RNZ that Taurua unleashed an “emotional and overly personal” outburst after losing a publicly-attended practice game against the NSW Swifts, 74-52, with Nweke in a red dress during the early stages of her stint with the Super Netball club.

For now, the Silver Ferns remain under caretaker coach Yvette McCausland-Durie. The reason given for Taurua not being brought back in immediately was to “minimise disruption”.

Taurua told RNZ she intends to hold a “healing hui” with all Silver Ferns players to address what has happened.

“I feel it’s not only for the players, the team, but you know, everybody to some degree has been hurt and we need that opportunity to come together so that we can move forward,” she said.

“If players have concerns, 100% I want to be able to listen to those concerns.”

A former Silver Fern — Louisa Wall, who is now chair of the Tūwharetoa Iwi Māori Partnership Board — said that reporting about Taurua had been biased and Netball NZ had engaged in “institutional gaslighting” by painting her as difficult for demanding to see evidence of alleged poor leadership.

“When history looks back on this period of New Zealand netball, it will not remember a difficult coach or a combative standoff. It will remember how a decorated Māori woman leader, Dame Noeline Taurua, was subjected to a flawed process and a one-sided public narrative that breached the most basic principles of fairness and natural justice,” Wall wrote for Newsroom.

“The recent RNZ In Depth feature, “Tears and fears: Inside the uneasy truce between Dame Noeline Taurua and Netball NZ,” reads like a case study in institutional bias and gendered framing. Behind the emotive headlines lies a simple truth: the process used to stand down and reinstate one of Aotearoa’s most successful coaches was deeply flawed, inconsistent, and unjust.

“The cultural review that triggered the crisis was commissioned by Netball NZ on the recommendation of High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ), which also paid for it. That review involved interviews with just seven players out of a potential 30 athletes and staff. Its limited scope alone should have rendered the process invalid. How can a partial and selective consultation justify sidelining a national coach and her entire staff?”

Click here to read article