By Rob Cole
Another season over, another last place finish and another new coach required – life is pretty predictable for the Celtic Dragons.
If there were prizes for effort, enthusiasm, team work and support, then they would be at the top by a mile. Unfortunately, top-level competitive sport doesn’t work like that.
As Julie Hoornweg heads back to Australia, the players and Welsh Netball officials will be left to reflect on a season in which they finished bottom for the second successive year following a last round defeat by 65-42 to Severn Stars this week, saw the Wales world ranking drop to 10th after a disappointing Commonwealth Games and a head coach vacancy with both the Dragons and Welsh teams.
To make matters worse, the Welsh players will have to sit and watch as the best teams in the world assemble in Liverpool next year for the World Cup, having missed out on qualification in Scotland.
So perhaps it is time for some strategic, and possibly radical, thinking. The roles of the two teams, the Dragons and the national side, need to be more clearly defined, with the Dragons desperately in need of a proper commercial strategy to help them attract full time staff and an influx of players.
It is no longer good enough to try to rely on home-grown talent – they are simply unable, and not good enough, to compete on both fronts. The Dragons is the higher profile team and in need of the more urgent attention if it is to retain its franchise in the ever-expanding and changing world of Netball Superleague.
It is no coincidence that the best season in the Dragons’ history was when they had the Grenadian shooter Lottisha Cato in their ranks. With ‘Timmy’ up front they were able to reach the Grand Final and pushed Team Bath all the way before going down 62-56.
Since then, with the departure of Cato and head coach Melissa Hyndman a year later, it has been a downward spiral.
They have played 78 games since then and won only 14 of them for a success rate of 18%. The last four seasons have seen them end with an embarrassing goal difference and it is now time for a long hard look in the mirror.
Do they merely try to make do and mend on the coaching front and continue with home-grown talent? Or is it not time for Welsh Netball to offload the Dragons to one of the Welsh Universities, as was mooted when they first began, in order for them to try to breathe new life into the team.
The experiment of importing a surface to play on at the Cardiff Met indoor athletics track was a success of sorts and the Dragons definitely need a better home venue than Sophia Gardens.
The problem they face is that all the other teams are racing ahead and the gap is getting bigger and bigger between the top and bottom on and off the court.
Money is needed, as ever in professional sport, but even more important is the governance and control of the Dragons.
Netball can lay a strong claim to being the national sport of the women of Wales. Through its participation in the Netball Superleague, the Dragons have a fantastic platform to promote netball in Wales in a way that the national team can’t.
But they are the least televised team of them all due to their lack of a facility and playing record.
Change those two factors and the sky is the limit! So here are a few thoughts on a way forward:
– split the Wales and Dragons coaching and management roles
– find half a dozen companies in Wales that can pay for an overseas player each for next season
– move all home games to Cardiff Met
– enter discussions with the universities in south Wales to try to establish a centre of excellence for netball (above and beyond what is being done at Cardiff & Vale College) at their establishment
– sell or pass on the Dragons franchise to another group so that Welsh Netball can get on with governing the game in Wales, while leaving the business of running a professional sporting team to a team of professionals.
The easy, and potentially best, answer to the coaching question is to invite the inspirational Suzy Drane to take over as the Dragons head coach.
Cut her and she would bleed green – and nobody knows more about what it takes to prepare for Superleague or international games than her.
If things don’t change, they will just stay the same as they are . . . which simply isn’t good enough on any front.
There is a huge opportunity to be grasped by Welsh Netball if they can look to the future.
If they don’t, then they may be faced with looking in from the outside while their sport spirals out of their reach at club and international level.
Celtic Dragons Superleague Record Since Reaching the Grand Final in 2013
Year Pos P W L For Agst Diff
2018 12/12 18 2 16 768 1150 -382
2017 12/12 18 2 16 852 1097 -245
2016 7/8 14 2 12 667 800 -133
2015 7/8 14 2 12 564 821 -257
2014 5/8 14 6 7 815 778 37
2013 Lost in Grand Final to Team Bath