A decade on, Aitken will tonight mark her final home test in charge of the Ferns at the same stadium, when New Zealand takes on England in their second and final test.
Aitken's first home assignment was against Barbados. She still remembers that bitterly cold winter's night in Invercargill (surely a torturous place for a Caribbean side to tour), although more than a hundred tests later she struggles to recall the scoreline.
"We won by a lot, I know that," she said.
For the record, the Ferns won 88-27. It was the third win of Aitken's career - Monday night's 62-40 win over England was her 86th and after tonight she will have just one more tour to Australia in which she will have a chance to add to that tally.
Aitken said she was still coming to grips with the fact that her remarkable ride with the Silver Ferns was nearing its end.
"It does feel quite surreal, really. I still don't quite believe it. It will probably be when it all stops that it will set in.
"There will probably be mixed feelings. I think there will be a sense of loss there. This group has been very important to me for a very long time."
It will also be an emotional night for another of the Ferns stalwarts, Irene van Dyk, who will rack up her 200th international test cap.
The veteran sharpshooter and world's most capped netballer is set to play her 128th test for New Zealand on top of the 72 she played for South Africa from 1995 to 1999.
Van Dyk (39) said she was not aware of the looming milestone until a Netball New Zealand official told her a few weeks ago.
"Where has the time gone, you know? It is incredibly special and I'm just very, very lucky to be in that position," she said. Whenever van Dyk reaches a milestone the Ferns seem to pull a big performance out of the bag.
When she became the world's most capped netballer in October 2005, New Zealand thumped Australia by a record margin of 25 goals, while she marked her 100th test match for the Ferns in Auckland two years ago with a 16-goal win over Australia.
But van Dyk is quick to stamp out any talk that the team will be motivated to produce a big performance to ensure she marks her newest record in style.
"I don't really want it to be about doing it for me, or doing it for Ruth either, because after this game we take on the big guns, so it is really important we just get the job done and do it well," she said.
One of the players likely to be tasked with trying to contain the world's most experienced shooter tonight is Stacey Francis, one of the new breed of athletic defenders coming through England's ranks.
The 23-year-old said while it was demoralising to lose by such a hefty margin on Monday, she took heart in the fact that many of the mistakes they made were easily fixed.
"Some people said the score didn't reflect the game, but I think for us it actually did. When we went away and looked at the amount of personal and basic errors that we made, we probably deserved to lose by that much," Francis said.
"But I think those are things that can be put right pretty quickly and that will be our aim [tonight]."
