Matt Whineray: Netball New Zealand Board Chair on the standing down of Silver Ferns coach Dame Noeline Taurua

A telling response as speculation swirls around the standing down of Silver Ferns coach Dame Noeline Taurua ahead of next week's international series against South Africa. 

Netball New Zealand claim they've made the decision due to "issues" within the high-performance environment which remain unresolved. 

When asked by Mike Hosking if the players were boycotting Taurua because she’s pushing too hard, Board Chair Matt Whineray paused, before denying the claim.  

Whineray told Hosking that they have some issues they need to resolve, and they’re hopeful they can, but in the meantime, they need to focus on the series against South Africa. 

Yvette McCausland-Durie has been parachuted in as interim coaching cover. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speaking of sport, netball continues to write through quite the
storm television rights players leaving for Australia, changes of rules
around eligibility. Now they've stood down. The national coach Nolan
Taru is going to miss the Tiny Jamison series against
South Africa. Matt winter Ray, of course, is the chair
of the board and he's back with us.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Matt morning, Good morning Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Is this Adrian or risk? Has she packed a massive
sad and you're threatening to soccer? Or how does this work? No?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
I don't see parallels with Adrian, But so what's what's
happened here is we've been having we've been heavy some
discussions with Dame no Olene and the Civil Fans management
team about how we how we make that high performance
environment the best one that we can because we want
that for our civil fans to be their best. We've
had some we've had some issues to resolve in there

(00:46):
that we haven't been able to get to resolution on
before the Tiny Jamison series. So we've put in places
interim approach. We've brought an event accauding jury as well
as Leona and THEODA as her assistant, both as coaches,
to make sure that we can support the players in
that immediate challenge of playing South Africa and while we

(01:07):
continue to see whether we can resolve these issues. So
that's that's where we are. That's all we announce it.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Okay, the issues are driven by the players or not.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
The issues are about making sure that everybody is performing
in a high performance environment. Everybody's in that, the Noline,
the civil Frien's management, players, we want to have that
to be a really positive, high performing environment. And so
we've got some issues in there that we need to resolve.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Are they driven by the players? So the players packing
us said because Nolan's too hard on.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Them, I can't come in enough that the pause is
all we needed.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
So the players don't like Nolan. Nolan's going too hard
and you're trying to resolve that.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Mike, No, Mike, that's not what I said. What I
said is we've got some we've got some issues that
we need to resolve. We haven't been able to resolve that.
When we do, if we are able to remain hopeful
we can, we will. But if we in the meantime,
we've got we've got to focus on the Silver Fan
Series US against South Africa, and so that's why.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
We've got a bit in Leanna, and are you confident
you can solve it?

Speaker 2 (02:13):
I'm hopeful that we can solve it. Are you confident
will continue to work? I'm hopeful.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Make would you be surprised? I know Noline if what
we hear is right, she's not for turning. So is
this basically the end of the road. We just haven't
announced it yet, but that's certainly not where we are.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
No, that's not where we are at the moment. We
continue to as we've noted, we continue to work on these.
We're hopeful that we can get to a resolution and
we'll keep doing that.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
All right. I wish you well with it. Matt Henray,
the chair of New Zealand Netball goes from bad to worst,
doesn't it?

Speaker 2 (02:49):
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