Lesley Nicol at the 2003 World Netball Cup in Jamaica playing for the Silver Ferns against the hosts in the semi final. Photo: photosport
Former Silver Fern Lesley Rumball was destined to work in the field of athlete welfare before she even retired from international netball 20 years ago.
Dr Rumball (née Nicol) did degrees in physiotherapy and medicine while she was a Silver Fern and has been working with people who participate in sport ever since.
It might be helping weekend warriors get back to the court after an injury through her job as a specialist sport exercise physician in Christchurch, or through the work she does with elite athletes.
Rumball was the first Silver Fern to reach 100 tests and was inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 2016.
She was the Silver Ferns' premier wing defence for a decade and brought up her century during the 2003 Netball World Cup in Jamaica, which New Zealand won.
Somewhat surprisingly only six other players have joined the 100 Test club since then, including her 2003 World Cup team-mates Irene van Dyk and Leana de Bruin.
Fellow centurions Laura Langman, Maria Folau, Casey Kopua, and Katrina Rore, were critical when the Silver Ferns finally broke their 16-year World Cup drought when they won the 2019 edition.
No one in the current Silver Ferns squad has clocked 100 tests and Rumball hopes to see more.
"You sometimes have a cycle where you might have a group of players who stay there for a period of time and they remain. I guess there's other options now, like you can potentially go play in Australia or England so whether we get players going away and coming back, it is a different environment.
"I think we trained really hard but sometimes you need to be wise in how you train rather than just the quantity and I guess we will continue to evolve where we get that balance right," Rumball said.
The former Otago Rebels and Southern Sting stalwart played with the likes of Silver Ferns Belinda Colling, Anna Stanley, Jo Morrison, and Vic Edward and many others who have gone on to be highly involved in sport across various spheres.
Rumball juggled her studies while she was a Silver Fern, when it was more doable.
From left: Anna Rowberry, Georgina Salter, Lesley Nicol and Sharon Kearney. Photo: Scott Barbour / www.photosport.co.nz
"I reckon we came through a really fortunate generation where we were paid to play but you also had that opportunity to have another career that you could keep developing at the same time. We were getting well remunerated and developing careers, but watching players come through now it's actually harder to do that, you almost have to wait to finish.
"While current Silver Ferns are well supported it's just more difficult I think to hold everything down because of the amount of games. I just think we were lucky in our timing because we were becoming professional but there was still the drive that you needed something else and it was easier to do that."
Rumball also works with regionally based athletes through a High Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ) programme, which helps manage young athletes who are in the pre-high performance space.
And she works with the Mainland Tactix as their medical director and provides medical support at Silver Ferns' tests in Christchurch.
"I really enjoy the Tactix because it's kind of a way of giving back and still keeping involved in netball, I coach a bit too at junior level. And I've seen this transition in sports medicine where previously with women's sport unfortunately there wasn't quite the same level of input that you would see in men's sport."
She played under hugely influential domestic coaches - the late Georgina Salter and Robyn Broughton, as well as Leigh Gibbs and Dame Ruth Aitken at the Silver Ferns level.
'Something was working'
Sharon Kearney was the team physiotherapist when Rumball was in the Silver Ferns and remarkably still is, having coming back for a second term.
Rumball looks back at her time in the team and believes their training and rehabilitation practices were potentially ahead of their time.
"Netball was actually really well looked after. The only real injury I had was when I fractured my scaphoid, the only Test I didn't play for the Silver Ferns was when I was sitting my fifth year medical exams so never because of injury did I not play, so something was working.
Lesley Nicol with the Silver Ferns in match against England at the North Shore Events Centre on 13 June, 2003. The Ferns won 60-41. Photo: photosport
"I was really fortunate to have Rob Nicholson (former Silver Ferns fitness co-ordinator) assist me with strength and conditioning later in my career, which helped prolong my ability to play into my mid- thirties."
Netball is notorious for ACL and achilles injuries, which can take players out of the game for at least a year.
"I think potentially the amount of time in the season maybe plays a role, I don't know it's really hard to pinpoint. There's definitely lots of work gone into programmes like Netball Smart for example, which focuses on landing and strength and Sharon Kearney has really led lots of that."
Rumball said the difficult part was maintaining good habits over a sporting lifespan.
"From the younger levels, and then relearning that once you go through puberty because centre of gravity changes for females and we forget that we need to relearn that through teenage years and that then carries on through your technique when you get to the elite level."
The ANZ Premiership is being cut from three rounds to two this year, in an effort to provide a heightened level of intensity across a 10-week-long season, compared to previous seasons that lasted up to 16 weeks.
"It's tricky isn't it because you want the intensity of play but then you also want really good quality games. Sometimes, when it's not good quality is when you're tired because you've travelled. When we used to play the week-long nationals tournament it was survival of the fittest, it wasn't good netball. And I guess there's a fatigue factor even if you're only playing once a week when you are doing more rounds.
"And whether you want another competition in there, whether that's a New Zealand-Australia based component or something else, you might have a break but then you have a peak of intensity."
Board role on new Sport Integrity Commission
Rumball is on the board of the new Sport Integrity Commission Te Kahu Raunui, which was sparked by the death of Olympic cyclist Olivia Podmore and a series of damning reviews into the country's elite sporting environments.
Sport Integrity Commission NZ board and staff (L-R): Adine Wilson, Tim Castle, Jono McGlashan, Bobbi-Jo Clarke-Heu, Sadie Verity, Rebecca McDonald (front seated), Ru Tauri, Rebecca Rolls, Don McKinnon, Paul O’Neil, Anna Mahood, Lyndon Bray, Keven Mealamu and Dr Lesley Nicol. Photo: Alan Lee / www.photosport.nz
She was a member of the 2022 HPSNZ/Cycling NZ Independent Review and the 2021 Gymnastics NZ Independent Review. An inquest into the death of Olympic cyclist Olivia Podmore will resume in April.
One of the first steps in any review is to interview participants and Rumball said people felt a huge sense of relief when they could finally talk about their experiences.
"There were so many people impacted, it was really important that they had been heard and there have not always been mechanisms in place to deal with that very well unfortunately. So looking after people involved, listening, validating and if there is an issue ensuring that change is made."
Rumball said she was surprised by some of the things she heard.
"It made me realise how fortunate I was in terms of the systems I had in place when I was playing netball and the fact that we were encouraged to not just focus on that one thing, which means everything else gets eliminated. It's probably slightly different with a team sport and then each sport has its culture and it's recognising that too.
"The other part is making sure that those processes and policies are in place that protect people."
Gymnastics New Zealand has implemented several changes off the back of more than 50 recommendations for change.
"It's been good to see that things are starting to get implemented and now we just have to hope that it then makes the difference and the athletes feel that they have a place to go to and it's not just athletes, it's everyone involved in sport. It's nice to see that we've got things in place but it's a long process and cycling had been through a review prior so it is not straightforward."
Rumball believes when athletes are given the skills to manage their own careers, rather than being told what to do, they perform better.
"And each athlete is individual, what one person might manage, someone else might not and having an individualised approach is pretty important and that's always hard in teams. But then also just recognising that an athlete is a person and looking after their well-being, which is all facets of your life, your spiritual and mental and then involving your family and other supports, that holistic picture is really important.
"Sport is there for the good of people and for me as an exercise physician that's what we encourage, exercise is health, that's how you stay healthy."
The Sport Integrity Commission will formally release the Code of Integrity for Sport and Recreation soon.
Rumball has three children, who all enjoy their sport. Her two eldest children both competed at the secondary school cricket nationals late last year.
Her son Henry was in the Christchurch Boys' High School team who won the First XI Cup title, while daughter Lily was in the Christchurch Girls' High team, who were runners up in the First XI Cup.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
