I invite Canberra Raiders coach Ricky Stuart to come to a game of netball and see for himself just how out of line and ignorant his comments are.
The comments raised on NRL360 demonstrate a disrespect to the sport of netball. The hard work and sacrifice of every netball coach – from professional through to grassroots – provides a toughness that Stuart has insensitively failed to appreciate.
Netball is the biggest team sport in Australia, played by over 1.2 million men, women and children all over the country. It is also the number one participation sport for Australian girls.
The Origin Australian Diamonds are one of this country’s most successful sporting teams and Suncorp Super Netball is the world’s best netball league.
Leading those 1.2 million participants are countless netball coaches. Whether that be at local netball courts, as head coach of one of the Suncorp Super Netball League clubs, or leading Australia to one of our 11 Netball World Cup gold medals – coaching a netball team in any competition is a tough job.
Toughness is a feature of all sports – it is not the domain of any one sport.
There is no better illustration of resilience, strength and commitment than within the netball community. That includes players, coaches, umpires, officials and volunteers.
While we acknowledge his apology, we won’t walk past a comment that demonstrates a total misunderstanding and disrespect to the sport of netball, and to its people.
