Photos courtesy of PowerShots Photography
Grant & Ryan: NSW State Netball
Story by Grant Maling
Almost 8 months ago Nura Gili students
Ryan Ahearne and Grant Maling trialed to
represent their state at the Australian Men’s
and Mixed Netball Championships. They
were both quite sceptical about making a
team but after an anxious wait of about a
month or so, Ryan made the under 20’s
and Grant made the under 23’s men’s
teams. Before long, training began 2 or 3
times a week, friendships were formed with
other team mates, coaches and
managers and the fitness levels were on
the rise along with the hopes of winning the
championship. Both of the boys agreed that
while training was hard, it was also a lot
of fun learning new things and developing
their skills.
“Some of the fitness sessions had
me on the floor dying but that extra
push from my team mates
motivated me to push on and get
through it, knowing it would help in
the long run,” said Grant.
“The week was so full on! We had to
wake up early for morning activation,
we had at least 2 games a day, then
recovery, ice baths, team talks, there
was so much going on and we were
always busy, it was hectic,” said Grant.
As with most team sports, there were a few
fights and arguments within the team and with
outsiders, but Ryan said they took it in their
stride and worked it out together.
The second last day saw the elimination, semi
and preliminary finals where Grant’s team won
a spot in the grand final, however Ryan’s team,
after a thrilling extra time preliminary final, went
down to Victoria by 2 points.
“We had a bit of a hiccup around
Christmas with another team, but
that’s when the team really came
“So there I was, laying in bed at 6am
together and fought hard to prove that
thinking to myself ‘we made it, this
we deserved to be there,” Ryan said.
is it,’ I was numb with the amount of
nerves that were tingling,” Grant said.
Before they knew it, the time had arrived and
they were boarding their respective flights to
go to Melbourne and battle their way through a
week of tough netball to be crowned the
National Champions.
The grand final was quite the spectacle but after
losing to them 3 times already, NSW under 23’s
came out on top winning against Victoria
42 - 37.
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Grant is in his final year of a Bachelor of Media (Communications and Journalism) and Ryan is
in his final year of Bachelor of Arts/Education.
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