Simone McKinnis. A netball icon who many will recognise as one of Australia’s best wing defenders, part of Australia’s ground-breaking era in netball on the world stage.
But here at the VIS, Simone is the Head Netball Coach and Coach of the Melbourne Vixens who she trains day-in, day-out, alongside her coaching staff to prepare them as best she can to take on the Suncorp Super Netball competition.
Simone’s mind is constantly on her team. As a coach, she tell us you’re always thinking about the individual players, what their needs and wants are from you as a coach and how you can best prepare them for what’s coming up. Preparation is key.
“That’s where as a coach, my job is to make sure they go into game day knowing that they’re absolutely prepared for anything that is going to happen and you gotta have faith and trust in that you’ve done the right preparation.”
Simone tells Pinnacle it’s a challenging job, preparing a team of netballers to perform their best every week of the season, constantly improving and working towards their goals. But at the same time, she finds it so rewarding.
In 1998, when she retired from professional netball with 63 Australian games under her belt, two World Championship titles and a Commonwealth Games gold medal, Simone admits coaching wasn’t necessarily where she thought she would go.
Simone says she more or less fell into coaching. She started off with Melbourne Phoenix in 2003 getting experience as an assistant coach, before moving overseas to Singapore and Tanzania where she was able to ground herself as a coach at the grassroots level. She strongly believes that her overseas experiences forced her to go back to the basics;
“I think the main thing was about teaching the basic skills...that was really, really good grounding for me [as a coach]. But also to work with young athletes and it’s just as important as the way that you help them grow as people, as it is about the sport itself. They were gorgeous girls and I just loved my time there.” Simone says of her time in Singapore.
Now, coaching at the top of the sport in Australia, Simone says she loves her job. Her passion for the sport is clear, she thoroughly enjoys helping her athletes perform at their best every week.
She believes that all of her varied coaching experiences have helped her create and build as her coach, but there are a few moments that stand out to her in particular, like the Melbourne Vixens 2014 ANZ Premiership. As their coach, she says she saw her whole team come together and overcome challenges that stood in their way, working together to achieve their goal, and nothing was more satisfying for her as a coach than seeing her team reap the rewards.
“It was just really satisfying because of the group, we had many challenges over the year and we worked so well as a real team and it’s just satisfying because you want those real positive, memorable moments for your players and just to see the players, their enjoyment of having achieved it, it’s just satisfying.” Simone says.
The enjoyment of the sport is something she believes is key. You play, coach, watch the sport because you love it, and Simone sees it as her role to make sure her players enjoy themselves on and off the court too, because without the passion, what’s the point?
“It’s a much more professional environment that we’re in now, but we always, and particularly this year, we sort of focus on ‘we gotta celebrate and enjoy the good times’ and it is important.” she says.
“I’m not going to get the best out of them if they’re hating it every time they’re turning up to training or whatever it might be. It’s having that really clear goal about what we’re going to achieve and how we’re going to do it, but we’re going to have fun along the way.” she says.
