As the new netball Superleague season gets under way England and Surrey Storm player Tamsin Greenway blogs exclusively for Sportsister.
Hi and welcome to my new blog. My name is Tamsin Greenway and I play netball for the Surrey Storm Superleague team and England. I’ll be writing to you each month to fill you in on all the news both on and off the court, hope you enjoy!
I’m really struggling to get in to the Christmas spirit at the moment, its only two weeks away but I’m finding it hard to think about presents and holidays until we get this crazy weekend out of the way!
That’s because our Co-operative Netball Superleague season starts tomorrow and we’ve been thrown straight in to it with a double header on Saturday and Sunday against Team Northumbria and Northern Thunder.
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Its been a manic couple of weeks really as I just got back from a six week break in Australia to begin training with my new club Surrey Storm. It’s been a quick introduction to the team, the tactics and the coach as we’ve prepared as well as possible for our start to the season. However things are looking good and I’m so excited about getting started and showing everyone what Surrey Storm is made of.
Surrey Storm squad
The team is a real mix of youth and experience; captaining us this year is England Co-Captain Sonia Mkoloma and joining her is England Team mates Geva Mentor and Rachel Dunn. We’ve also picked up players from several different Superleague Teams and we even have a few Ozzies in the mix to really spice things up!
The squad is great and has really gelled together in such a short period of time, and we’ll be looking to use that team spirit this weekend. The first two matches are going be a real test for us but I think we should come through with two wins, which will really start the ball rolling and push us in the right direction. The season ahead looks really promising and with the quality of the whole squad we should definitely be in that final four come April.
Photo shoot time!
After this weekend we have one more week of training before we get our Christmas break and I think I’ll be ready for it. Although next weekend is not as hectic, on Saturday we have our team photo shoot and judging by past player pictures I think its going to be awesome. We’re off to a proper studio in London, hair and makeup (thank god) will be sorted and amazing pictures (fingers crossed) will happen! It’s always nice to do the girly stuff as you spend a lot of your time being hot and sweaty when you are constantly training! Plus it’ll be cool for the squad to spend some time together off the court for a bit of team bonding.
On the Sunday we’re in Reading for a match against the England Squad. This will be great practice for Storm; the opportunity to play at international standard can only help us improve. England are going to be doing several of these matches throughout the year against all the different teams to help us also improve as a squad.
To be honest it’s a real big year for us in the England team as we build up to the Commonwealth Games, we hope that this extra match practice will benefit us all. We have already shown this year what real competitors we are going to be at the games next year with close matches against the top two nations Australia and New Zealand and several wins over rivals Jamaica. The next test will come when Australia visit England in February, we’ll be able to see where we’re at and hopefully these matches will have started to pay off. We really want that Gold medal come next October.
Life down under
But right now that all seems like such a long way away and I’m just getting used to being back in England and back in the cold weather. My tan from Oz is slowly fading, I believe it’s freezing off as we speak! However it is nice to be back home, I have spent most of the year away in Brisbane playing for the Queensland Firebirds in the ANZ. Although I loved every minute it’s so good to be back playing here in our own competition and catching up with all my friends and family.
My new job off court
I started working again this week and am really excited about my new job as Netball Development Manager for the Surrey Sports Park, Storm’s partner and the University of Surrey. I am going to be based at Surrey University and I will be helping develop netball at the University and across the region. The aim is to get out there and promote Storm and show the London and South East region what a great sport netball is! It’s all quite exciting really and I’m just hoping netball really takes off even more than it has done already.
All in all I think we have a lot to look forward to over the next few months, and I know it’s going to be a great season for Storm, so keep checking us out. Have a great xmas and I’ll be back in the New Year to give you an update on netball and what Santa brings me over Christmas. Plus I might reveal a few New Year resolutions!
Tamsin x
Tamsin Greenway, Sportsister
The Women’s Sports Magazine
