Severn Stars have boosted their squad to its 2020 Vitality Superleague season with the registering of Liana Leota.
Stars have swooped to make one of the competition’s most consistent performers with signing up underway throughout the Superleague.
Leota has enjoyed a four decades using Thunder, culminating in a 57-52 Grand Final victory over Wasps in the Grand Box in May, but the New Zealander has opted for a new challenge before the new season.
The 34-year-old, World Cup runner-up in 2011 and plus a Commonwealth silver medallist in 2014, heads into the West Country to combine .
It also signifies a reunion using a face in the form of Stars’ head coach Melissa Bessell, who coached Leota as she has taken over the reins in the franchise following the departure of Sam Bird.
“I’m just excited to begin. It’s a new challenge with a new franchise for me personally and I can not wait,” the former New Zealand international exclusively told Sky Sports.
“Melissa said to me she has such a gifted group of young players but has been keen to have someone with experience and knowledge of them on court. For me, it was a case of if I wanted to take on that challenge.
“To be able to make a difference to this younger gamers was something new for me. With Thunder we had such a excellent group of mature players, anybody could come in and out, but today it’s up to me to try and make a difference together with those young ones”
Bessell is something of a mentor for Leota, who’s eager to make the move and having worked at Manchester with all the Pathway teams she’ll continue that with an opinion for her post-netball career.
“Once the whistle goes a coach can not do anything, therefore [I need ] to be the player on the court that could hopefully offer the understanding, the experience and the serenity that Melissa can’t till the break.
“Melissa was a coach for me as a teenager in New Zealand when I was growing up and now I enjoy her strategy – she tells it how it is – and us on this side of the world we’ve always been looking boards for one another.
“Once she made the Stars job for this type of girls that is what got things moving and, for me personally, I am now in that particular period where I’m asking if I want to coach.
“But, for the time being, I have a desire to play and to win and succeed but I am beginning to look ahead to if I want to be a coach – I love coaching and I have a passion for it, but can I really be good?”
Bessell is delighted to have a player of the standing on board of Leota as the Stars seem to make the jump to being a top-four contender.
She said:”This has to be one of the best signings in the Vitality Superleague. Liana is not a world-class athlete, however, an amazing leader with an enormous amount of expertise and among the , beautiful individuals in the game today.
“It is very exciting to have her playing to get your Severn Stars this year. She is among the most energetic players, using an inherent knowledge of the sport. Her passion and flair is magic. I am rather happy to be working with her in my very first season and am excited for the other athletes to perform together with her.”
It brings to an end.
She’s nothing but fond memories of her time having moved to play her netball along with her husband Johnny who moved to play Sale Sharks rugby union in the united kingdom.
“It was really, really hard like I have had such a blast in Manchester. We’ve had some wonderful accomplishments. And I am rather happy to have the ability to leave as a Superleague winner”
Sky Sports is your home of netball and it yields to your displays whenever they tour South Africa in November, although the Roses return to action under new trainer Jess Thirlby beginning with theFast5 British Championships on Saturday October 12.
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