It's been just over a year since New Zealand netball coach Ruth Aitken approached former Silver Ferns goal attack Belinda Colling for some "one-off" help at the shooting end of the court.
Just back from two years in Italy and France with rugby-playing husband Charlie Hore, and with three young children, Colling wasn't really looking for anything too demanding, but couldn't resist her former coach's call for help.
"Ruth got in touch to see whether I'd be interested in coming in and doing some work with the shooters, one-off type stuff, and it just grew out of that," Colling remembered.
With 91 caps for the Silver Ferns, Colling's involvement since hasn't looked like abating, as Aitken utilises every available resource in a bid to ensure New Zealand successfully defend their Commonwealth Games title in New Delhi in two months.
Colling has been working with the Silver Ferns as their season gains momentum, and was an interested spectator as they stitched together a patchy performance against Jamaica yesterday in Christchurch.
Although the win was reasonably comprehensive at 58-35, Colling could see plenty of room for improvement ahead of Saturday's second test in Napier.
Always an analytical reader of the game, she said the Silver Ferns' slow start put them on the back foot for much of the first 30 minutes.
"They'd been working hard all week, and there was a lot of new stuff to learn," she said today.
"I think they were probably quite over-loaded and a bit flat coming into that game.
"They got the wind knocked out of them by not starting clinically -- it was a pretty slow start, and we just let the Jamaicans into the game."
Although the New Zealand attack was patchy, things looked better as the game wore on, they adjusted to the Jamaican game and by the final whistle, some beautifully timed ball was winging its way into shooter Irene van Dyk.
"I think they probably fell back into old habits early on, rather than really trying to work on some of the stuff they'd been doing all week," Colling said.
The Silver Ferns' work-load has deliberately been kept heavy rather than tapering as it normally would ahead of internationals against Jamaica and Australia, with a three-test series starting in Adelaide on August 29.
"We've really been pushing hard to make sure the focus is on the Commonwealth Games, so I know their bodies would have been a lot more tired than they usually would going into tests of this nature," Colling said.
"We were also trying a lot of different strategies, and perhaps there was quite an overload of that as well because they struggled to stick to stuff we wanted to try in that game."
It hasn't been that long since Colling herself pulled on the goal attack bib, and helped shoot New Zealand to a famous victory over arch-rival Australia at the 2006 Commonwealth Games. She was also part of the 2003 world championships winning team, as well as representing New Zealand in basketball at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
New Zealand has struggled to build depth in the goal attack position since Colling's retirement nearly four years ago. Look beyond incumbent Maria Tutaia, and the stock of players with the shooting skills and court attributes to fill that most demanding of positions is sparse.
While admitting there have problems in the last few years, with a big step down to the next tier of players who should be poised to challenge for Silver Ferns honours, Colling was cautiously optimistic things were looking up.
Young players such as Canterbury Tactix's Ellen Halpenny, or Julianna Naoupu, of the Southern Steel, had the potential to make it at the top level, as they developed the attributes of a international goal attack.
And those attributes? Colling ticked them off:
"You have to be an athlete, fit, strong and powerful, dynamic and quick. You have to have the netball skill set, and some natural ability, some flair and instinct.
"And you need to have a good head and be the sort of person who's confident, calm and decisive, with good court awareness. You have to be able to absorb pressure and stay focused. And, at the end of the day, you have to be able to put the ball through the hoop.
"You have to be a complete player."
