Ellen Halpenny is a New Zealand internationalist and won silver at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. She signed for Sirens from Magic, who played in the prestigious ANZ league in New Zealand.
We’re now four games into the season and last Monday, we got a good, solid win against Team Northumbria. They’re bottom of the league so we were looking to beat them but what was really pleasing was the way we controlled the whole match. We got off to a good start, which is something we hadn’t done in the previous three matches and so we weren’t chasing the game this time. I feel like we’re really learning and improving as a team match by match and our consistency is definitely getting better although we still had the odd lapse against Northumbria, so it remains a work in progress.
Tomorrow we play Loughborough Lightning which will be very tough – they’re top of the league so we’ll all have to be on our game but we’re really excited about playing them. Loughborough are really strong in every area of the court and they’re looking really sharp and so we’ve been doing a lot of video analysis this week to get ready for the match as well as lots of team meetings to talk about our tactics and game plan.
I’ve been in Scotland for two months now and I’m really enjoying it – everyone is so friendly and so it’s been really easy to settle in. Having played in the Commonwealth Games in 2014, it meant that I wasn’t coming somewhere that was totally alien to me, although the weather at Glasgow 2014 was amazing so that lulled me into a false sense of security about the Scottish weather. But the main reason I signed for Sirens was that I felt like I needed a new challenge in my career. Sirens have a great coach, it’s a great set-up and when Claire, the CEO of Netball Scotland, told me about the philosophy behind Sirens – our slogan is ‘Changing The Game’ – I couldn’t wait to sign up. Since coming to the UK it’s been a real challenge for me to adapt my game because the style of play is very different from what I’m used to but I’ve loved having to rise to that challenge. I know that if I don’t play well, I’ll lose my place in the team, so that drives me on to work harder every day.
Netball is huge in New Zealand and what I love about that is it shows women’s sport and female athletes are truly valued. If Sirens can help to promote women’s sport in Scotland, that’s definitely something that I want to be a part of. We really hope that Sirens can inspire more women and girls to become involved in sport and we feel like we’re building a community which in years to come, will be so important for netball in Scotland.
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