Gina Crampton traded one team for another this year, which means she’s busy making new connections.
The Silver Ferns wing attack made her 100th appearance in domestic netball last weekend, as the Stars beat the Mainland Tactix to make it two wins from two this ANZ Premiership season.
But it was just her second for the Auckland franchise, following 98 for the Southern Steel, and she’s still getting used to her new surroundings.
Originally from Wellington, Crampton arrived in Dunedin in 2010 to study, then made her debut for the Steel in 2012, and played a big role as they won the ANZ Premiership in 2017 and 2018.
But after nine campaigns for the southerners, the 29-year-old decided it was time for a change of scenery in 2021.
“I think it was just time for me to leave really,” Crampton said this week.
“I’d been there for so long, and I didn’t have many people left in Dunedin in terms of friends or family and with netball as well, it was just a good time to have something new.
“I probably won’t be playing too many more years, so I wanted to keep it fresh and just have some different coaching and be around different players and hopefully evolve my game a little bit with some changes in that respect.”
On a netball court, wing attacks live and die by the connections they can foster with their goal attacks and goal shoots.
Play in the same place for long enough, as Crampton did at the Steel, and those connections can almost become second nature.
But when you move to the other end of the country, as she has done this year, it means there is plenty of work to do.
Fortunately, her move to the Stars has teamed her up with fellow Silver Fern Maia Wilson, so it’s partly a case of building on the relationship they’ve formed in the black dress.
Reflecting on the power of a good connection, Crampton’s mind immediately turned to a former team-mate who left the Steel a year before she did.
“I know that I had a good connection with Te Paea Selby-Rickit because we played like a thousand games together, through club netball, then reps, then Steel and Silver Ferns as well,” she said.
“We spent so much time together and that is how you build a connection with someone, having the time with them.
“Then I guess there’s been other people in teams over the years that I’ve had to work a bit harder at getting a connection with.
“That’s the tricky thing about netball, is that everyone talks about building connections, but how can you actually speed that process up without having to play a couple years with them?
“What’s good about this team is I’ve obviously played with Maia before and Jamie [Hume, the Stars’ starting goal attack] as well, so we hopefully we can just pick up where we left off a wee bit and hopefully grow as an attacking unit as well.
“That’s ultimately what’s going to help us put out good performance, knowing what the other person’s doing and when they’re going to do it and when you can rely on them in certain situations.”
Looking back at her connection with Selby-Rickit and what made it special, Crampton first nodded to another former team-mate, one that played alongside her in the Steel midcourt.
“I would say the same thing about Shannon Saunders as well – we just played for so many years together that it becomes second nature, and you know what they’re going to do.
“Also, when you know someone for that long, you can sort of have those micro conversations pretty easily and pretty quickly and just tell each other what you want to say without wondering how they’re going to take it, or if you’re actually saying the right thing.
“There’s all those sorts of aspects to it as well.”
The funny thing about Crampton hitting the 100 game milestone was that she should have brought it up last year at the Steel, but when Covid-19 reemerged in Auckland in August and the last two rounds of the ANZ Premiership were cancelled, she was left stranded with 98 caps.
But as she looks to cement her place in the Silver Ferns for next year’s Commonwealth Games in England, and the defence of their Netball World Cup title in South Africa the following year, she’s relishing the opportunity to test herself in a new environment.
“That’s an exciting thing about moving teams is that you do have to relearn things and that is how you learn things.
“For me, for example, I can’t just do the same old things that I would have tried to do with the Steel.
“The players around me are different, the structures might be different, and that’s how you learn, because people will want to put you into different spaces, or they might see something different to you.”
The Stars are the only team to have two wins after the first two rounds of the season, and they’re on the road to Tauranga this weekend to face the Waikato-Bay of Plenty Magic, who lost last Sunday to the Pulse, the team the Stars beat in round one.
But while that bodes well, Crampton is wary that “anyone can beat anyone on the day” in the ANZ Premiership this season, which she feels is a healthy sign for netball in New Zealand.
“Magic obviously have big names in their team. They’ve got Caitlin Bassett, they’ve got Temalisi [Fakahokotau], they’ve got Sam Winders – all these people that are high-level players that we need to be able to contain.
“It will be a real tough tussle against them, and we play them and then someone else and then them again, so it will be good to get a feel for them, then play them again two weeks later and really try and get some points on the board.”
