BRITISH SuperLeague star Michelle Magee and long-serving vice-captain Fionnuala Toner are the established big names of the Northern Ireland netball team’s back circle but Warriors supremo Elaine Rice now has a couple of other options if she wants extra height.

Olivia McDonald, who won her first senior cap as a highly-rated teenage goalkeeper on the tour to the Caribbean a few months before the 2014 Commonwealth Games, is in the Warriors squad for Birmingham after taking the scenic route to her first major tournament.

The highly-promising, pencil-slim six-footer didn’t make the final selection cut for Glasgow 2014, went to Northumbria University that autumn and didn’t move back to her native Belfast until the start of the pandemic.

With long-serving goalkeeper Gemma Gibney Lawlor retiring after the 2019 World Cup, McDonald’s return to the national squad was welcome as has been the emergence of her young Belfast Ladies clubmate Maria McCann.

McCann, at 6’1” the tallest defender in this squad, turned 21 last Sunday and the QUB Medicine undergraduate who hails from Carryduff finds herself coming of age in netball terms too at a very opportune time.

Another previously uncapped Belfast Ladies defender, Lauren Walshe from Ballymena, was preferred for last August’s Test against the Republic of Ireland in Lisburn but McCann got the nod for the October tour to Gibraltar and won her first three caps there.

“For me, that was an ideal introduction to international netball because we were firm favourites to beat both Gibraltar and Isle of Man so I was able to ease myself in and had the safety net of knowing everyone around me was so strong.

“Going away with the squad for a number of days also let me start forming friendships properly so it was a really worthwhile trip even though we knew there would be tougher opposition on other occasions,” reflects McCann.

She then picked up the Northern Ireland Player of the Match award in the training game against South Africa later that month and was a key figure under Magee’s captaincy as the Under 21s won European Championship silver medals in the Isle of Man in November.

“That South Africa match was an amazing day and I remember being both excited and terrified.  Fionnuala and Olivia were absent so I had a good opportunity alongside Michelle.  It was one of my best experiences in netball and nice to have my family there for it.

“The U21 Euros was special too.  That was my first tournament as a starting player for an NI team and I tried to embrace that responsibility.  We hadn’t done well at age group level for a while, so beating Wales was a big breakthrough result.

“I’d been in an Under 17 squad in the past but was a fairly fringe player then and then came Covid-19 and no international netball for a prolonged period.  Isle of Man was a first U21 Euros for nine of the 12 players so the onus was on someone like me to find my voice a bit.”

McCann’s formidable body of work last autumn made her selection in this Commonwealth Games squad no surprise and Rice could deploy either her or McDonald as goalkeeper at times to give either of her regulars a break or let them shuffle forward a place.

Relative newcomer McCann has plenty of familiar faces around her as Belfast Ladies supply the biggest club contingent in this squad, with five representatives, and she is one of four players who came through Our Lady and St Patrick’s College Knock.

Rather remarkably, Maria is also one of four who have played gaelic football for Carryduff, with Ciara Crosbie also coming from the village and the Magee sisters, Emma and Michelle, helping the club win their first Down Senior Championship back in 2017.

Michelle Magee played a starring role in that Carryduff team and, as her recent NI Under 21 netball captain also and an influential figure in the Warriors squad, she is one of several important role models for McCann.

“Michelle has had quite a big influence on my netball career, partly because I was very aware of her through Carryduff, where she was a star footballer too.  She’s a little bit older than me and was always in the NI age group squads in netball.

“She’s such an impressive figure for whom everyone has so much respect.  The younger girls look up to Michelle so much and I’ve had her as someone to aspire to follow in both football and netball,” says McCann, who played Gaelic football for Down up to Minor level.

“I was with Down from Under 14s up through Under 16s to Minor and was invited onto the senior county panel the summer that I turned 18, but the netball became my priority around that time so something had to give.

“Carryduff won that historic county title and we got to the next two finals but have been less successful the past couple of years.  I’m not the bulkiest but my height is useful for kickouts,” she remarks, slightly self-deprecatingly.

“If I’m playing midfield with Michelle Magee, my role would be more defensive.  It’s difficult combining both sports and unfortunately you miss some matches for the club but hopefully there are some transferable benefits from playing netball at a high level.

“I started playing Gaelic aged just 4-5, always with Carryduff and also in primary then secondary school.  We (OLSPK) always seemed to lose to Cavan’s Loreto in our Ulster finals,” she recalls of her time at a school with a serious reputation in netball.

“The first time I played netball, I was in P7.  We went into Knock for an open day. Then when we started there, all the girls in first year were like ‘we’re going to play netball’.  There were maybe about 60 of us.

“It was such a big thing in the school and the netballers were the superstars.  I remember Olivia, who was in sixth form at the time.  I’m best friends with Maeve Crosbie, whose big sister Ciara flew the flag for Carryduff at the 2019 World Cup.

“Now we’ve two Carryduff girls in the Commonwealths squad and two of the other four major tournament newcomers, Olivia (McDonald) and Frances Keenan, who comes from county Armagh, are at my club, Belfast Ladies."

Young gun Maria McCann (right) after her impressive performance for NI Warriors against South Africa in a training game last October
2Gallery

Young gun Maria McCann (right) after her impressive performance for NI Warriors against South Africa in a training game last October

McCann was coached at OLSPK by her hero Lawlor, who was helping out with NI in advance of these Games, while she and fellow circle defender McDonald play with Warriors vice-captain Fionnuala Toner for the newly-crowned NI Premier League champions.

“Fionnuala is unreal, always giving advice at training even if she’s on the opposite team, and I’ve learned a lot from her at club level.  It’s nice coming into this squad and having those connections with her and Michelle, the established players in that area of the team.

“I hadn’t spoken to Elaine (Rice) properly before she came in as Warriors head coach but her sister was our school principal so that was an indirect connection, plus she’d been involved with Belfast Ladies previously as well as having such success with NI.”

Along with following fellow Knock past pupils Toner, Crosbie and McDonald and Carryduff football team-mates Emma and Michelle Magee into the green dress, having two doctors in the squad provides reassurance that you can balance netball with a medical career.

Captain Caroline O’Hanlon, NI’s most capped player of all time who will be leading the Warriors at a third consecutive major tournament and won another British SuperLeague title with Manchester Thunder last month, is also a great gaelic footballer for Armagh.

She combines both sports with working part-time as a GP in Newry while Surrey Storm vice-captain Niamh Cooper, who like O’Hanlon will be competing at a third Commonwealth Games, is a hospital doctor in England.

“Having both of them there is reassuring and it’s nice to know they’ve been able to do both things, which a lot of people probably think would hardly be possible.  I’ve just finished my second year studying Medicine and am loving it so far.

“Queen’s is such a good environment, really supportive.  I’ve probably been interested in becoming a doctor since starting second school and it was a definite focus since GCSEs.  I go out on placement at the end of August, so it will become more real then.”
Before then comes the realisation of another ambition which McCann has also worked hard towards for some time when she takes to the netball court for Northern Ireland at Birmingham 2022.

“Seeing Gemma and Michelle, who also both play in the back circle, competing at the last Commonwealth Games made me think that could maybe be me one day, but breaking through in time for Birmingham might have seemed unrealistic at that stage,” she reflects.

“But I got invited onto the extended senior squad just before the pandemic and thought ‘this is unreal, I’ll go and see what happens’.  When restrictions eased a bit there was a small group of us in the gym five times a week for about a year.

“Elaine took over during that time and things really got going last summer.  She came to me at the end of a training session in August and said ‘you aren’t going to Glasgow (for two friendlies) but you’re very close, you’re nearly there.

“Then I was chosen for the Gibraltar trip, that South Africa match went well soon afterwards and from there Commonwealths selection felt like a realistic target but I’ve continued to work hard both before and since the squad was picked for Birmingham.

“We have five of the top 10 teams in the international rankings in our group including current world champions New Zealand and reigning Commonwealth champions England, so that could sound daunting but I’m really looking forward to the experience.

“In some ways it’s good not fully knowing what we’ll be up against, because I don’t want to go there too scared.  I was marking Malawi’s Joyce Mvula when we played Manchester Thunder in January and that’s the toughest opponent I’ve faced so far.

“I’ve learned not to be over-awed by the big names in our own squad like Caroline, because the senior players and coaches need us to pull our weight and back ourselves, and likewise we’ll fight hard together as a team against whoever we play.

“In terms of the physical challenge, I’ve worked really hard in the gym with our S&C coach Mike Bentley twice a week this past two winters,” says the willowy McCann, who has been blessed with height from an early age – “I was always taller than the boys in primary school.”

Maria’s supportive dad did the honours at the official dress presentation ceremony earlier in the month and both her parents are expected in Birmingham for at least some of the action over the next week or so.

“The netball tournament is going to be a brilliant showcase for my own sport, which continues to grow, but I’m looking forward to the entire experience – spending time with the girls and living in the athlete village and mixing with the other sportspeople,” she enthuses.