BY RICHARD BULLICK
NORTHERN Ireland netball fans will be watching closely when the new British SuperLeague season gets underway on Saturday morning with all four NI Warriors in action in the opening game live on SKY Sports.
Emma Magee has joined her younger sister Michelle and their Northern Ireland captain Caroline O’Hanlon at Leeds Rhinos, who face Niamh Cooper’s new side Severn Stars (11.00am) in the first fixture of a bumper day of netball at Nottingham’s Motorpoint Arena.
Cooper previously played with Emma Magee for Surrey Storm but left last summer after not getting a single start in the 2023 campaign and the 31-year-old wing defence is now looking forward to a new challenge at Stars, who have immediately made her vice-captain.
She could even find herself marking fellow doctor O’Hanlon this weekend as the brilliant Bessbrook sportswoman, an acknowledged world-class centre, featured quite a bit at wing attack for Rhinos last season.
The Rhinos roster is much-changed however from that frustrating first campaign under their Kiwi supremo Liana Leota when injuries were a significant factor and they spent a prolonged period bottom of the table before rallying to finish seventh.
New vice-captain Michelle Magee, who just turned 24 last month, is now the only player who has been with Rhinos since their inaugural SuperLeague campaign of 2021 and she has really flourished over the past couple of seasons.
Apart from the younger Magee and O’Hanlon, everyone else from last season’s initial core squad of 12 is no longer with Rhinos, with the departures including Ellie Bird, the towering Kiwi shooter with Northern Irish ancestry who has retired from professional netball.
SuperLeague Players’ Player of the Season for 2023, Vicki Oyesola, has swapped Rhinos for Saracens Mavericks, while Wales skipper Nia Jones has returned to her homeland to play for the rebranded Cardiff Dragons.
Former New Zealand ace Leota’s list of new signings is headed by legendary England goalkeeper Geva Mentor, who retired from international netball after playing in her sixth World Cup in Cape Town last summer, when the Roses reached the final for the first time.
Superstar Mentor, who twice won World Player of the Year and was a 2018 Commonwealth Games gold medallist, has been playing professional franchise netball in Australia for the past 15 years and will skipper Rhinos on her eagerly-awaited return to SuperLeague.
It may take the revamped team time to gel but the two new women O’Hanlon will likely be feeding in the attacking circle are very familiar to her, including Malawi goal machine Joyce Mvula with whom she combined so effectively throughout her time at Thunder.
Mvula left Thunder after their title triumph two summers ago and spent the intervening year playing professionally in New Zealand but she will enjoy linking up again with Leota and O’Hanlon, her fellow official flag-bearer from Gold Coast 2018.
Star shooter Mvula had a conversion rate over 90 percent in SuperLeague previously, netting 774 goals during Thunder’s record-breaking 2022 campaign, and played in her fourth World Cup for Malawi last summer.
O’Hanlon has played plenty at international level with Emma Magee, Northern Ireland’s leading scorer at the 2019 World Cup when aged just 21, and having her there should help the mercurial goal attack settle back into SuperLeague.
Having previously played against each other in SuperLeague, it will a real thrill for the Magee sisters – both talented gaelic footballers who have shone for Antrim in the past – to team up together for Rhinos as they do in international netball.
It is hoped that all three NI Warriors will be in the Rhinos first choice starting seven, with O’Hanlon pulling the strings from centre, Emma Magee paired with Mvula up front and Michelle Magee partnering Mentor in the back circle or possibly playing wing defence.
Leota has also signed 26-year-old Australian Zoe Davies, who was with Mentor at Suncorp Super Netball outfit Collingwood Magpies, and Scottish international Sarah McPhail so Michelle Magee will have fierce competition for either berth.
The franchise’s 2022 Players’ Player of the Year, Amelia Hall, has returned after a year out and will aim to nail down the wing attack role ahead of Welsh international Celyn Emanuel, who has joined from Celtic Dragons.
Teenage forward Harriet Jones, who was coming through the famed Thunder pathway when O’Hanlon was in Manchester, is a promising shooter who is part of England Netball’s Future Roses programme and will keep Emma Magee on her toes at goal attack.
Leota’s core roster is completed by young centre Cassie Howard, who has been elevated to a full contract, and Rhinos Academy graduate Amy Braithwaite, who was promoted to the SuperLeague panel last season when South Africa star Elmere van den Berg was ruled out.
Mentor, who is 40 days younger than new team-mate O’Hanlon and 44 older than coach Leota, made her senior England debut aged just 16 in 2001 so began playing international netball even earlier than the Northern Ireland legend.
This will be O’Hanlon’s 10th SuperLeague season since she first signed for the now defunct Team Northumbria a decade ago, later playing for Strathclyde Sirens in their inaugural campaign of 2017 before those glory years at Thunder.
Despite sustaining a significant shoulder injury away to Team Bath at the end of March, O’Hanlon missed just two matches in the 2023 campaign, came off the bench in her first game back and started last season’s other 15 fixtures.
Rhinos finished a disappointing season strongly, garnering as many points in their last three matches as their first 15, and Armagh gaelic footballing great O’Hanlon hopes that upturn in fortunes augurs well albeit that the Rhinos roster is radically different now.
Although Rhinos lost their last pre-season friendly against Thunder, they thrashed Sirens away on their previous outing and the build-up to the opening game seems to have gone smoothly compared to the badly disrupted preparations of a year ago.
They will want to hit the ground running against Stars, who were invigorated last season by Leota’s fellow Kiwi Jo Trip taking over as player-coach, and she has made several signings since including Cooper, South Africa’s Lefebre Rademan and Welsh shooter Betsy Creak.
Giant South Africa shooter Sigi Burger and defender Rebekah Airey previously played for Rhinos while MacPhail has moved in the opposite direction during an off-season which saw many changes to rosters.
Champions Loughborough Lightning face Surrey Storm in Saturday’s second match (12.45pm), Strathclyde Sirens take on Team Bath (2.30pm), London Pulse meet Manchester Thunder in the standout tie (4.15pm) and Cardiff Dragons play Saracens Mavericks (6.00pm).
BBC will share the broadcast coverage for the first time, with a selected match in each round of fixtures to be shown on the iPlayer, while Sky Sports will utilise their Youtube channel in addition to their schedule of televised games.
The four NI Warriors who will be involved in this season’s SuperLeague opener (from left) Caroline O’Hanlon, Michelle Magee, Emma Magee (all Leeds Rhinos) and Niamh Cooper (Severn Stars)
