Gina Crampton has capped off a big year in style.
The Southern Steel wing attack was named transtasman league player of the year at the New Zealand Netball awards in Auckland on Thursday night. That topped off a season in which she made her debut for the Silver Ferns, played in the Fast5 world series and was part of the Steel’s outstanding season. Despite that, the award came unexpectedly to Crampton (24).
"I was so surprised, to be honest; I was really taken aback by that," she said.
"But very happy. It was a pretty cool testament to what we did this year with the Steel, so it was pretty nice to top it off that way."
Crampton had a breakout year in 2015 and won the Aspiring Silver Fern award at last year’s awards. After continuing to impress with her speed and feeding ability, she was called into the national team this year. She replaced the injured Kayla Cullen in the Constellation Cup series against Australia, playing two tests in that before being part of the champion New Zealand Fast5 team in Melbourne.
"It’s good to get a taste of what international netball is like and I think it will be cool to be able to spend more time in that group. But the Fast5 was a really awesome week and it was a cool way to finish off what has been a very long year."
She had learnt plenty from the Silver Ferns environment, both on and off court, finding the pace and skill level a big step up.
"I didn’t think it would be much harder, because we played Australian teams in the ANZ champs [transtasman league], but it’s so much harder.
"You’ve got the best of the best there, so it is a very big step up intensity-wise and you’ve just got to be so fit if you want to play more than a quarter of a game like that. So that’s definitely going to be a good challenge."
It was good to have others from the Steel in the national setup and she hoped that boded for a successful season next year. Before then, she would go on holiday to Thailand and get back into training with the Dunedin-based players upon her return. The full Steel squad would gather in mid-January.
Meanwhile, new Steel assistant coach Lauren Piebenga was named national coach of the year. Piebenga guided the Netball South team to a championship in the national development league, the latest in an impressive list of successes for the Dunedin coach. Netball South’s winning performance was also voted moment of the year by fans. Dunedin referee Jono Bredin won transtasman league referee of the year.
