Yvonne Willering: Former Silver Ferns coach gives the latest updates on the Dame Noeline Taurua situation

Netball NZ and Dame Noeline Taurua are headed for a legal showdown after both sides have failed to reach an agreement. 

Yvette McClausland-Durie will continue as coach for the Constellation Cup. 

Former Silver Ferns head coach Yvonne Willering told Mike Hosking that this is now an employment matter, therefore the Players Association isn’t involved in the matter. 

She said that Taurua had strong beliefs in her style of coaching, which is suddenly being questioned. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Nitball miss drags into another week. Nitball New Zealand
Dame nol In Taru are then headed apparently for some
sort of legal showdown if you can believe this after
a week of the Lord knows how many hours of meetings.
Evon Willering's with us on this eyvone morning.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Yes, good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Can you explain, you know, from your experience? And I mean,
how is this thing dragged on as long as it has?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Oh exactly? You know. And it was interesting because after
sort of Grayson Wicky spoke out at the end of
the Tiny Jameson sy series, I thought, okay, this is
now going to force Netle MW Zealand to have some
honest conversations and basically work to resolve this whole issue.
And with a situation now who knows. I mean initially

(00:39):
we were at the Netble community was disappointed. I think
the Netborle community now is quite angry about how it's
all come out. And now Dave nol in Taru has
been suspended for a made of twenty twenty five and
it's gone from a high performance program and environment problem
and it's now become an employment issue. And you know,

(01:00):
I'm going why has this not been resolved? And I
think it started off reasonably small and it is really
fested and now it's become a major.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
So does this sit with the leadership of netball it's
on them to do something.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, it's all parties involved, you know, and you alluded
to it. You know, they had mediation and it was
hours and hours, so you know you're looking at that
and going someone make a decision as to what's happening.
And for a while there I was sort of saying,
you know, all the wrong people are coming out in
the media rather than the actual people involved. And yes,

(01:37):
I know lawyers are involved and you've got to be careful,
but you know, finally, finally the Players Association have provided
a statement and I looked at them and and I
was critical of them and the fact that I was
saying they needed to look after all the players, not
just the ones that had had the grievances and had
taken that to net On New Zealand. But they're now

(01:58):
coming out saying it's an employment matter, so it actually
doesn't involve the Players Association. So yeah, I think that really, yeah,
it's now been foled off into something else and it's
just sad that really all the talk is about Dame
do nol in ta Rua and the environment that's being created. Well,
I look at this and I'm going there's lots of

(02:19):
other people on board nowadays. It isn't just about a
coach and a manager. You know, they had three coaches,
they had a high performance manager, they had a manager
as well. Surely any potential toxic situation should have been
avoided or at least dealt with internally. And it's so
sad that this is now out in the public arena

(02:40):
and we're all having a say about it.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
What would you do?

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, I just think the wrong people
are now sitting in there having discussions. And I find
it very sad that it's got to the stage that
obviously it's totally about lawyer's involvement, and you know, it's
all very well, say, you know the players, you know
how they're going to carry on. No, no, they're still
going to step out of silver ferns the moment they

(03:05):
put the black dress on. That's their responsibility. But you
still look at that and you go, where is their accountability?
And you know, Dame Noling Tarua is sitting at home.
You know, basically weaving a garden and I'm going, you know,
somewhere along the line. It's just it's a situation whereby
who is responsible for what for what? And I don't

(03:27):
know at the moment. I think they didn't expect the
reaction from Dame Nolan Tarua that they got. I think
that they thought she was just going to toe the line,
make the adjustments and move on with it. But she
has strong beliefs in her style of coaching and you
know it's worked in the past, and suddenly she's been

(03:47):
questioned on it. But why just her? And I just
don't get it. And none of us actually know exactly
what the situation is behind the scenes, and we're all
speculating right now exactly.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Nice to talk to you, ifon Willering. So you got
two parts, haven't you got? Which camp are you in?
In the players camp or the coaches camp? And how
much player power is there and how much coaching power
is there? That's one part of the argument. The other
part of the argument is how come they can lead
an organization so abysmally and not make a decision and
allow us to drag on for more from the mic
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(04:21):
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