Now here's a little bit of information for those non Australians out there. Nearly every Australian girl has played netball at some time in their life. In fact I think it's compulsory for every child to play it in primary school :-)
If not for Physical Education at school, we'd be playing the local competition. So what I'm saying is that netball is a bit of an institution in Australian female sporting life. Most of us know how to play it - whether we like it or not.
However some of us have contined to like the sport of netball even after years of involuntary passing drills at school. Netball is actually the sport with the highest participation by Australian women - and in the international scene it shows!!
Only until very recently Australia had been unbeaten in every game of international competition since 1991. That record sadly came to an end in Feburary 1998 when the team had a surprise loss against Jamaica by two goals.
Australia's major rivals over the past...... well actually always, have been New Zealand.
Australia vs NZ
Now here's another bit of information for non Australians - Australia and New Zealand have a huge rivalry with each other, especially in sport. Australians love to beat New Zealand and they love to beat us (especially when they beat us at Rugby, in Melbourne in front of 100 000 people..... but that's another story).
However to be perfectly honest, New Zealand have been very ordinary for the past few years at netball, and I for one have gotten sick of seeing Australia win all the time. Amazing isn't it?! I never thought that I would say this, but I'm so happy that they finally lost to someone.
My theory is (I have a lot of useless theories), that sport isn't worth watching unless the team you're going for has the chance of losing. I find a team that is never beaten really boring - ie the USA mens basketball team. You need suspense and heart ache to make sport really fun!! If I'm watching a team that I know will end the match being the winner, why bother, that's not what I want to see.
Mind you i still want to see the girls win the Commonwealth Games and the World Cup in New Zealand in 1999...... just not so easily.