New coach Milicich plots S’pore netball’s climb to the top

SINGAPORE — Just two days after arriving in Singapore, new national coach Natalie Milicich went to the OCBC Arena to observe her charges at training for the first time.

While the New Zealander did not take charge of that session last Tuesday, she had designed the drills specifically to see how the players would react in a high-intensity environment.

At the end of the training session, the 50-year-old went away feeling encouraged.

“My assessment is that the players are very committed, and they want to work really hard,” Milicich told TODAY. “They’re eager to learn and try new things ... I made training quite difficult, but that’s how I like to train — with high intensity — and we’ll continue on in this manner going forward.”

Previously the high performance manager and head coach of New Zealand’s Netball Central Zone — which oversees the development of netball in its area — Milicich was officially confirmed as Singapore’s new national head coach by Netball Singapore (NS) last week. She will take over from compatriot Ruth Aitken, who stepped down from the role a year ago for personal reasons.

Long-time assistant national coach Yeo Mee Hong took charge of the team during the search for Aitken’s successor, and led them to silver at the recent SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur.

During Milicich’s time with Central Zone, the team went undefeated in the Beko National League — a developmental competition one tier below the ANZ Premiership, which is New Zealand’s top domestic netball league.

Milicich’s record in youth development is one of the reasons she was recommended by Aitken and former Silver Ferns Coach Yvonne Willering to take charge of the Singapore national team.

“Ruth and Yvonne thought I was the right fit because this is more a development team, with young players, which fits my strengths,” explained Milicich, a mother of four.

“I think there needs to be work done in all areas, but with the experience that we’ve kept on the court with our shooters, the main focus I think will be on the defensive players initially, just to make sure we’ve got some depth in that area. At the moment, we’re a bit light there.

“I’ll also have to look at the players individually, have some one-on-ones and understand what they want personally out of their netballing career, and look at our team goals and values as well, but I’m not worried because I have got some good support people around me.”

While Milicich may not have prior experience coaching a national side, having previously coached clubs and national age-groups teams, NS chief executive officer Cyrus Medora believes it will not be hard for her to make the transition.

“It may be Natalie’s first national team job, but at NS, we’ve been managing the international game for a long time,” he said. “So we have some sort of template, we know what we need to do (to succeed), we have certain benchmarks for the players.

“Of course, the demands for Natalie are a lot higher because it’s a national team job, but we’ve also got Yvonne and Ruth who are always there to help us if we need it. So it should be fine ... maybe at the international level there might be a few differences, but there are a lot of resources for her to tap to make sure it works.”

One of Milicich’s long-term goals will be to improve Singapore’s world ranking of 18 and break into the top 12, as well as to develop a larger base of players here. In the short term, however, she will be focusing on readying her team for the Mission Foods Nations Cup in December, before gunning for glory at next year’s Asian Netball Championships on home soil.

Malaysia are the current Asian champions, having taken the crown off Singapore at last year’s tournament in Thailand.

With just one year to prepare for the next Asian championships, Milicich admits it will be a “challenge” to reach the final. Nonetheless, she is confident that it can be done, and has already formulated a plan to improve the national team over the next year.

“Having watched the team play the semis and final of the SEA Games, I think what we really need to look at is our coping strategy to negative situations. I want my players to learn how to cope with high-pressure situations, because if you practise that way, when you put them in that situation, it’ll build the belief that they’ll be able to get out of it.

“A year is long enough to do that if we get the right group of girls.”