SPORTING sisters Emma and Michelle Magee are set to face each other live on Sky Sports next Monday teatime (5.15pm) when Surrey Storm meet Leeds Rhinos in netball’s British SuperLeague.
The multi-talented siblings from Finaghy, who play Gaelic football for Carryduff and Antrim as well as international netball for Northern Ireland, are each currently in their first season in the semi-professional SuperLeague, the sport’s flagship competition in the northern hemisphere.
Emma, who was Northern Ireland’s leading goal-scorer at the 2019 Netball World Cup, has shone up front for Surrey Storm between two spells out injured, while Michelle has had several encouraging cameos in defence for Leeds Rhinos.
SuperLeague newcomers Rhinos are on the charge as they push hard for a play-offs place and won’t want their hopes of a top four finish to be blown off course by Storm, who are a better team than their disappointing results this season suggest.
Storm are desperate to end a 12-game losing streak and the clash with Rhinos would appear their best bet of getting a victory in their final four fixtures of the season, so both teams have plenty to play for in Monday’s match.
Although Michelle Magee, a Loughborough University student who just turned 21 in January, has yet to start for Rhinos, all of her appearances have come at goal defence while 23-year-old Emma has been Storm’s first choice goal attack whenever fit.
So that places the sisters on a direct collision course if both are on court at the same time on Monday, with Michelle marking Emma, and that will be a strange experience as they are regular team-mates in two sports and have never even been on opposing sides before!
“Myself and Michelle are generally really close as sisters. There was a lot of talk about how being with different SuperLeague teams could affect our relationship, but it’s been great having someone so close to me who is in also in their first season at the same time.
“We know each other inside out and have each other’s interests at heart. She’s very good at checking in with me and I’d chat to her about how she’s feeling too. At one stage we were both travelling a lot, so had that in common too,” says Emma.
The elder of the Magee sisters works at the prestigious Sedbergh School in Cumbria, located between the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales, a beautiful part of the world but a long way from her netball base with Surrey Storm.
That means marathon trips south several times every week, a draining journey which takes five and a half hours each way, though Emma was able to base herself in Surrey when her school was shut for the post-Christmas lockdown.
Magee made the starting seven for the opening game of the season in February but disaster struck when she tore ankle ligaments just four minutes into her SuperLeague debut against London Pulse, an injury which kept her sidelined for the next eight weeks.
That scuppered the prospect of a family match-up against Michelle the first time Storm met Rhinos early in the campaign and another recent injury scare for Emma was threatening to spoil the script this time too.
Emma made an impressive return off the bench against champions Manchester Thunder followed by a superb performance from the start next time out against Pulse, when the Sky Sports pundits raved about the Belfast forward’s display.
The Magees in Antrim colours
Unfortunately, Storm being pipped at the post 43-41 by Pulse probably cost her the Player of the Match award and further narrow defeats followed against basement side Celtic Dragons and fellow strugglers Severn Stars within a five-day period.
However, Magee generally performed well in those games and in the subsequent loss to Strathclyde Sirens before picking up an unfortunate abdominal muscle injury against high-flying Loughborough Lightning.
She missed the match against table toppers Team Bath but is expected to return this Sunday against a Thunder team featuring her Northern Ireland captain and Armagh Gaelic footballing great Caroline O’Hanlon.
Ironically, considering she is a Loughborough student and was previously part of the Lightning Academy, Michelle made her first SuperLeague appearance as a sub against Lightning earlier in the season.
It was a baptism of fire against a team whose two shooters were the 6’7” Uganda giant Mary Cholhok and 6’3” professional basketballer Ella Clark, but the younger Magee will be eager for the opportunity to tackle Lightning again in the return fixture on Sunday.
Considering she thrived on being thrown in at the deep end at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games while still a schoolgirl at St Dominic’s, Michelle is a cool customer who relishes challenges, however big in any sense.
Whatever about being dwarfed by the Lightning shooters, come Monday Michelle would have a slight height advantage if marking Emma, but it would certainly be an intriguing tussle between them.
During the original lockdown last spring, the Magee siblings enjoyed one-on-one garden games in both gaelic football and netball back in Belfast, but now they could come up against each other for real in London live on the telly!
This match could have a quartet of Belfast women among the 14 players on court, with both Storm and Rhinos having Northern Ireland internationals at wing defence in the shape of Niamh Cooper and Fionnuala Toner respectively.
Doctor Cooper comes from the Antrim Road and is currently working at a London hospital, while Rhinos co-captain Toner, a Dublin-based accountant with Deloitte, is a native of the Malone Road, so there will be plenty of local interest.
With coronavirus restrictions easing, this weekend will be the first that time fans have been admitted to SuperLeague games this season, while Monday’s match can be watched live for free on the Sky Netball Youtube channel as well as on television from 5pm.
