If you've ever wondered just how intense training under Silver Ferns coach Dame Noeline Taurua can get, Gina Crampton's past 24 hours are a perfect insight into what it takes to be netball's best.
Crampton was at tonight's farewell function for the Silver Ferns before they depart for their build-up to next month's Netball World Cup. It featured former World Cup-winning Silver Ferns captains Judy Blair, Leigh Gibbs and Anna Stanley giving each member of this year's squad a pounamu.
"It's amazing. It's also really nice to get the legacy of the Silver Ferns together," Crampton said.
"That's something we've spoken about a lot over the last couple of days — that we're representing the past, the present and the future of the Silver Ferns and so having successful captains and players all here is really important to us."
But the enjoyable evening was part of an enduring 24 hours for the team with Taurua doing her best to prepare the side for Cape Town when they least expected it — at 3am this morning.
"We got a message at 8.30 last night to pack our bags for training and we were leaving at 10pm," Crampton said.
"We went through a lot — we learned a new Māori chant to sing at the World Cup and we did a training in the very early hours of the morning and we also walked from AUT to Devonport [a 6km journey] over the space of a couple of hours in the rain.
"I think it was all about mental pressure, preparing for anything, absorbing anything and sticking together as a group through anything."
Speaking at the function, Taurua joked it had been "a very long day" for the team.
"As you saw when everybody walked up here, it's not like we've been on the piss or anything like that — it ain't got nothing to do with that but we've had a very long day.
"And what that is is us trying to emulate the pressures we're going to get out on court."
It's a mindset the team will have to take with them going forward, with the first stop of their World Cup campaign being Australia's Sunshine Coast, where Crampton knows from previous experience there is more Taurua trials awaiting them.
"I've been nervous for [the Sunshine Coast training camp] since the last one four years ago," she said.
"I think next week in Sunshine Coast will be a lot more on-court which is worrying as well because it will be a lot more of the body fatigue than mental fatigue but it's what we need to prepare our best."
Despite the gruelling schedule Crampton, who announced earlier this month she will take an extended break from netball after the World Cup, said it could be the difference in South Africa.
"It's definitely coming around quick.
"We've had information overload in the last couple of days but that's what it's all about — we're learning our systems and our structures and over the coming weeks we really want to refine and be able to execute those."
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