OPINION: There is a reason why we romanticise the amateur sport era in New Zealand.
Amateurism guaranteed that winning came down to who had the "talent" and who could train the hardest and best while holding down a "real" job.
Stoic New Zealanders did well in this environment. Maybe it was our pioneering spirit, our obsessive interest in sport, our healthy outdoor lifestyle.
We often refer to these years as the golden years.
Then professionalism came along and slowly, but surely, we lost our slim advantage and the golden shine started to fade.
To a certain extent, professionalism is a great leveller. If everyone is given the same amount of resources (time and money) to train for their sport, a lack of natural talent is easily compensated for by cutting-edge training techniques, technology and tactics.
As we become accustomed to professionalism, however, economies of scale suggest we'll never compete with Australia when it comes to resources and population.
They invest more state funding into elite sport, and have a wider talent pool from which to select their champion athletes and teams.
In rugby union, we manage to compete against the Australian-based franchises in Super rugby mainly because their player pool (and coaching pool?) is still inferior, in quantity and quality, to ours (forget about the glitch in the Chiefs Matrix against the Reds!).
You can also rely on Australians to fight mongrel style; demonstrate the killer instinct when necessary; and display gamesmanship rather than sportsmanship when it's crunch time. And rather than be stoic and staunch, they're emotional and provocative.
And that is exactly what Norma Plummer is.
It is no surprise that she has laid down the challenge to us by suggesting none of the New Zealand teams are capable of winning the transtasman netball league and, in some ways, she's right.
We can't compete when it comes to superior development pathways (Academies), and better resourcing of teams which allows for extra team trainings during the week.
Noeline Taurua has called for one of the five New Zealand teams to be dropped from the league in order to make the competition more viable, and to assist with the financial sustainability of the remaining teams.
Only the Northern Mystics are posting a profit, and they are also the only team most likely to make the play-offs. At a stretch, the Waikato-Bay of Plenty Magic could also make the mark.
But will cutting off a finger make the hand more viable? Raelene Castle is almost as colourful and forthright as Plummer, and she is adamant that cutting one team will not solve Netball New Zealand's problems.
I can't imagine netball franchises are frivolous with their resources. As a sport, netball is used to living off the smell of an oily rag.
When I was playing rugby for New Zealand, I complained that we only got $30 in daily allowances, only to hear from a Silver Fern that they received a meagre $15. I soon stopped moaning.
The New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU), after years of letting its charges run free, has had to rein in a few of its wild provincial unions and put their prized franchise brands on the market.
Maybe NNZ has to do the same with its franchises, conceding control in the process? Another visionary, in the form of Mystics coach Debbie Fuller, suggested introducing a world selection team to increase global viewership and commercial interest.
Something has to be done to stem the flow of Australian-based franchises dominating the podium. In four years since the league has existed, four Australian teams have been victorious, Kiwi teams have won only six games abroad and 34 against their neighbours in total.
In fact, we should thank the likes of Norma. She raises our hackles and makes NNZ take a good hard look at itself and its structures, programmes, and competitions.
Castle has asked netball fans in New Zealand to be patient when it comes to a transtasman victory. In true stoic fashion, we can do that.
We waited a long time to win back the Webb Ellis Trophy, have enjoyed fleeting moments of glory with the Warriors and are still feasting off the back-to-back wins of the Breakers.
That should be enough to tide us over until the Magic and the Mystics step up and silence those Australians (especially Norma!) sooner, rather than later.
