Manchester Thunder's Sophie Fawns has been an "absolute joy to watch," says Tamsin Greenway, as she welcomed the Grand Final player of the match onto the latest episode of the Your Site Off The Court podcast.Â
Thunder to win the Netball Super League title on Saturday.
The match was poised at 51-51 with less than a minute remaining, but Australian Fawns stepped up to sink a dramatic winner and guide Thunder to a record-equalling fifth NSL title.
"She's [Fawns] been an absolute joy to watch," Greenway said.
"Just the impact she had in that final. Sophie Fawns is the game-changer here and we'd spoken about it a lot beforehand as well.
"She came on in the Grand Final, halfway through that second quarter, and had 18 points in total.
"She scored eight out of 10 in the one-point zone, but more importantly, five out of eight in the super-shot with that massive two-pointer at the end of the game.
"Two minutes to go, level pegging after Karen Greig's timeout. I mean, Fawns spoke about the pressure there was playing in Australia, and she spoke about loving the game over here, but you know that was still a massive moment in front of all of those people.
"The impact and technical change early from Karen Grieg was brilliant, because they knew what they could get from Sophie Fawns."
Former England international and head coach Tracey Neville was also full of praise for Fawns on Off the Court.
"She's the one that's always brought on to make the difference and what an absolute top girl," Neville said.
"As soon as Sophie Fawns came on, I felt the crowd and the team lifted.
"The size of her, the impact that she had, the possession, but even that role on centre pass as well, and then when they brought Lois Pearson on to complement her with the speed, I just felt it opened up so much.
"I think in that second quarter they got caught a lot just running down into pockets and they played a lot of a possession game. The change in speed or tempo was so effective.
"Sophie Fawns, every time she gets the ball in hand, do you ever think she's going to miss? I felt like a centre just walking back to the circle whenever she got the ball in the circle."
Speaking to Greenway on Off the Court, Fawns touched on the difficulty for Australian players coming into Super League, and the way she has managed such expectation and succeeded.
"I'd spoken to a few of the Aussie girls who have been here already and they kind of said it's that expectation that no one talks about but everyone also talks about," Fawns said.
"That you've come from Australia, so everyone expects you to be absolutely phenomenal.
"That was one of the first conversations I had with Karen Greig [head coach]. She was like: 'I think you're an amazing player, but I don't expect anything of you.'
"She also said: 'there is no pressure at the end of the day, because realistically in terms of netball minutes, you're still quite young. We can't expect you to put out, in the first round, 60 minutes of amazing netball, and that's okay. We're here to build with you.
"I think just to have those conversations, it eased the pressure that I felt.
"She literally was like, just go and have fun, like, don't deep it, it's netball."
Fawns added in a wide-ranging discussion with Greenway that her decision to travel to Manchester and ply her career here is one which has proven inspired.
"I really think that coming over to England was one of the best decisions I've ever made, and I'm so grateful that I did it.
"For me, coming from playing in SSN (Suncorp Super Netball - professional league in Australia) and being a pressure-moment shooter or playing those 20 minutes, I had a different kind of role.
"I wanted to progress my game into being more of a full-time player, and I know I was always brought out to run around, bring a bit of chaos, bring that kind of speed.
"I remember my first few training sessions, Karen was a bit like: 'Whoa, you can slow down, it's okay, we don't have to run at everything.'
"I had to remember it was about lasting 60 minutes, not just five at a time.
"So for me, it was just about learning that craft and learning how to be a little bit smarter of a player, and I really think Karen was one of the best coaches to learn from for that."
