THE Northern Ireland netball squad of 12 for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games in Birmingham includes no fewer than seven players from South Belfast  including long-serving vice-captain Fionnuala Toner.

Malone Road woman Toner is set for her third Commonwealths having first featured at Glasgow 2014, while fellow defender Michelle Magee made her debut at Gold Coast 2018 while still a schoolgirl.

The latter’s elder sister Emma Magee and fellow forward Ciara Crosbie both played in the 2019 World Cup but are Commonwealth newcomers while Olivia McDonald, Maria McCann and Georgia McGrath are each set for their first major tournament in the green dress.

There is a real Carryduff flavour to this Warriors squad with McCann and Crosbie both coming from the area, while the two Magee sisters helped the local Gaelic Games club land their first Down Senior Championship success in ladies football back in 2017.

Both Magees have lined out for Antrim at inter-county level, Michelle as recently as last Sunday’s All Ireland Junior Championship semi-final against Carlow when she scored a couple of points off the bench as the Saffrons recorded a convincing victory.

However, they are considerably better known now as British SuperLeague stars, with Emma in her second season on a core contract at Surrey Storm and Michelle upgraded to a full pro deal with Leeds Rhinos during the recent campaign.

Having gone to the last World Cup as a raw rookie, Emma emerged as Northern Ireland’s big breakout star at that tournament, finishing as leading goal-scorer for the Warriors in spite of playing in the secondary shooter role.

She had the second most minutes of any NI player at Liverpool 2019 behind the tenacious Toner, a top-class defender famed for her flexibility and feistiness who made the SuperLeague All-Star squad last year.

The 32-year-old was co-captain of Leeds Rhinos last year having previously played for the now defunct Team Northumbria, London Pulse and Team Bath but the Dublin-based Deloitte accountant opted out of SuperLeague this past season.

Toner’s departure partly promoted the successful switch of Michelle Magee to wing defence for Rhinos over recent months but the pair are likely to occupy the back circle positions in the Warriors starting seven in Birmingham, shadowed by McDonald and McCann.

The youngest player in this squad aged just 20, McGrath will be back-up to Emma Magee at goal attack with English-based solicitor Crosbie competing with Jenna Bowman from Magherafelt for the goal shooter bib.

Crosbie, who turns 28 this Sunday and won England’s National Premier League Division One title with Oldham this season, is one of five players in this Commonwealth Games squad attached to NI Premier League champions Belfast Ladies.

McDonald, McCann and Toner form a formidable defensive trio for Belfast Ladies, whose other representative is 22-year-old Frances Keenan from Cullyhanna, who graduated in Finance from Queen’s University earlier this month.

Lisburn-based Larkfield, who have dominated domestic netball for much of the past decade, are represented by captain Caroline O’Hanlon, another experienced campaigner Michelle Drayne and Bowman, who is the third sister to play up front for Northern Ireland.

Her elder sister Lisa shot the team to a convincing victory over Wales in the seventh place play-off at Glasgow 2014 and was joined Down Under last time round by sibling Kyla Bowman, who shared the goal attack role with Knockbreda woman Oonagh McCullough.

McCullough is among seven departures since Gold Coast along with Northern Ireland legends Noleen Lennon and Gemma Gibney, fellow stalwart Lisa McCaffrey from Andersonstown, both Bowmans and the then Tyrone gaelic captain Neamh Woods.

Armagh Gaelic footballing great O’Hanlon was official flag-bearer for the overall Team NI at the opening ceremony of the most recent Commonwealth Games at which the Warriors came an excellent eighth under current head coach Elaine Rice.

Derry native Rice, a senior lecturer at St Mary’s University College, stepped down after that tournament but returned last year in place of Australian Dan Ryan who steered the team to 10th place at the intervening World Cup.

The five differences in Rice’s squad for Birmingham compared to Ryan’s World Cup panel see Lennon, Gibney, Woods, McCaffrey and English-born shooter Shanagh Craig replaced by McDonald, McCann, Keenan, McGrath and Jenna Bowman.

Carryduff attacker Ciara Crosbie is set for a second major tournament in the green dress
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Carryduff attacker Ciara Crosbie is set for a second major tournament in the green dress

Former Methody pupil McGrath is the absolute bolter in this squad, having failed to be selected for the U21s squad which won European Championships silver under Michelle Magee’s captaincy in the Isle of Man last November.

However, the Ulster University student won Player of the Tournament at the inaugural NI Super Cup competition the following month, helping the Samurais net the trophy, and continuing to impress in training has earned her selection for the Games.

A niece of Kieran Harding, who recently stepped down as assistant manager of Glentoran FC, McGrath was originally targeting qualifying for Birmingham 2022 as part of a basketball team but instead netball has proved her golden ticket.

If McGrath has quickly come from nowhere, McDonald has taken something of a scenic route to her first Commonwealth Games having originally been brought into the Northern Ireland set-up as a highly-rated teenage goalkeeper.

The pencil-slim six-footer won her first senior cap against Trinidad on Northern Ireland’s tour to the Caribbean a few months before the 2014 Commonwealth Games but then moved to Northumbria University that autumn.

She didn’t move back to Belfast until the start of the pandemic but the 26-year-old occupational therapist has since returned to the national squad and, along with McCann, gives Rice options at the back.

Deploying McDonald or McCann in the goalkeeper position would give the Warriors extra height in the back circle and allow Michelle Magee, Toner, north Belfast woman Niamh Cooper and O’Hanlon to each shuffle forward one place.

Sisters Emma and Michelle Magee are heading to the Commonwealth Games together
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Sisters Emma and Michelle Magee are heading to the Commonwealth Games together

The squad’s tallest defender McCann, who turns 21 next Thursday, won her first cap against Gibraltar last October and, apart from Michelle Magee, is the only other player to have made the cut from that successful U21s squad.

As a medical student at Queen’s, McCann is set to follow in the footsteps of Warriors colleagues O’Hanlon and Cooper by becoming a doctor, and she has also represented Down at age group level in Gaelic football.

Her country’s most capped player of all time and captain for the past six years, O’Hanlon has been in the NI squad for almost two decades while Toner has been playing senior international netball since 2009.

The 37-year-old O’Hanlon won the second SuperLeague title of her career with Manchester Thunder last month and is one of four players set for a third Commonwealth Games along with Toner, Surrey Storm vice-captain Cooper and Drayne of Severn Stars.

Northern Ireland face world champions New Zealand in a very tough first fixture on July 29 and defending gold medallists England three days later and will also be underdogs in their other three group games against Malawi, Uganda and Trinidad.
 
NI WARRIORS’ SQUAD: Caroline O’Hanlon (Manchester Thunder/Larkfield; capt), Fionnuala Toner, Olivia McDonald, Maria McCann (all Belfast Ladies), Michelle Magee (Leeds Rhinos/Westside), Niamh Cooper (Surrey Storm/Kingsway), Michelle Drayne (Severn Stars/Larkfield), Frances Keenan (Belfast Ladies), Emma Magee (Surrey Storm/Westside), Georgie McGrath (Kingsway), Ciara Crosbie (Oldham/Belfast Ladies), Jenna Bowman (Larkfield).