Bailey Mes wasn't banking on playing for the Silver Ferns again, but a change of attitude from the veteran shooter has seen her reclaim her mojo and a ticket to the Commonwealth Games. Suzanne McFadden reports.
Meet the new Bailey Mes - the calm, confident, refreshed and contented netballer.
The athletic, versatile shooter who’s put the pressure and expectation from an often-tempestuous career behind her and now plays for the love of the game. Who, because of that change in mindset, is playing some of her best netball yet.
The 2019 World Cup champion who this week was reduced to tears when Dame Noeline Taurua told her she had another shot at the Silver Ferns.
A decade after she made her unexpected Silver Ferns debut, Mes hadn’t been expecting a recall to pull on the black dress. Nor the chance to blot out the upsetting memory of the Ferns' 2018 Commonwealth Games downfall.
“I hadn’t been thinking about anything beyond tomorrow,” the 33-year-old admits. “This was never at the forefront of my mind. So there was definitely a lot of emotion.”
A year ago, Mes was far removed from this new and improved version of herself.
Returning to the game following a year's recovery from surgery on a difficult knee injury, she found herself frustrated at the Mystics. The goal attack to Grace Nweke’s goal shoot, her principal role became feeder rather than shooter. She lost all confidence in front of the hoop.
“It was a real shocker last year. It took away the enjoyment factor from my netball,” Mes admits.
“I was barely shooting. I lost that rhythm to the point where I didn’t even feel comfortable going to the post, which is obviously your main job as a goal attack.” In a 16-game season, she put up just 105 shots.
“I loved the Mystics team and ultimately winning the premiership. But it was just a battle.”
Still struggling with her return from a patella cartilage injury, Mes decided to make herself unavailable for Silver Ferns selection for the rest of 2021, and the tour to England at the start of this year. She remained in the national squad, but stressed her priority was “rest and rehabilitation” to prepare for 2022.
Yet even when the new year rolled around, Mes still wasn’t sure whether she’d play for New Zealand again.
“I was fully aware that was a possibility,” the 72-test veteran says. “But I decided to take everything as it comes.”
Needing a new direction in her life, Mes could have walked off the netball court for good there and then. But instead, she chose to buy a house in Papamoa and joined the Magic for the 2022 ANZ Premiership season.
It was there she found her groove again – and, by her own admission, played some of the best netball of her career.
She certainly did enough to impress Taurua once again, as the Silver Ferns coach named Mes this week as one of her four shooters to play at next months’ Commonwealth Games.
She’s "super excited" to be back in the fold for her second Games, but she still has some work to do before focusing solely on Birmingham. She's working remotely for Sky Sport’s imagery team, who are of course, thrilled by her selection.
"But my boss is a bit upset I won’t be helping to cover the Comm Games from back here,” Mes laughs.
The weight of volume
Taurua has never been afraid of a challenge, coming to Netball New Zealand’s rescue after the Ferns finished outside the Commonwealth medals for the first time, on the Gold Coast in 2018. But she describes putting together this Silver Ferns team as a “complex situation”. Covid, the flu, injuries, pregnancies, and failed fitness tests all shook up the selections.
When it came to choosing the shooters – Mes, Maia Wilson, Te Paea Selby-Rickit and Nweke - Taurua and her fellow selectors focused on volume.
“When I look at our shooting end, definitely we’ve got height to burn,” Taurua says. (Mes, at 1.87m – or just over six feet tall - is the shortest of the quartet.)
“When I look at the big three teams that we’re up against [England, Australia and Jamaica] and the players we have, we have a moving circle, we have a holding circle. I would like to think we’ve got smart players out there,” Taurua says.
“We have variety. Apart from Grace, who’s a specialist goal shoot, we have players who will put up the shot volume. Volume is really important to us, and you can’t quiver from putting the shot up.”
An international goal shoot needs to put up at least 40 shots in a game and her shooting partner around 24 attempts to be competitive, Taurua points out.
“There are areas to improve on in regards to accuracy. But if you have shooters who aren’t even looking at the post, that’s really hard for them mentally to change their habits or their ways,” the learned coach says.
“I feel these four shooters are the highest volume shooters that we have in New Zealand, plus the adaptability to play a different game style.”
Mes certainly proved herself in that department during this ANZ Premiership season. She increased her shooting volume fourfold from the previous year – sinking 330 shots from 428 attempts (at 77 percent accuracy).
Although she moved around the shooting circle, often switching roles with her partner Ameliaranne Ekenasio, Mes could be considered the most prolific goal attack in this year’s league.
(Overlooked goal shoot Aliyah Dunn, by the way, had the highest volume with 664 shots at goal, with a 93 percent success rate. She's now switched codes to basketball, playing for the Tokomanawa Queens in the new Tauihi Basketball Aotearoa league).
Donning the gloves
So what changed in Mes’ game? How did she lift herself back up again to potentially be one of the best shooters in the world?
Well, the almost 10-month break she took away from the court was the starting point, she says.
“I definitely think it helped. Stepping away from the Ferns, I knew I was nowhere near able to put out what I would have needed to internationally. I was barely able to get through the ANZ season,” Mes says.
“Then being in lockdown and having more of a forced rest was great for me. And improvising training-wise - I ended up doing heaps of different stuff for enjoyment and with my flatmates - taking my mind off netball.”
She got into boxing (“You probably wouldn’t pick it from looking at me; it hasn’t changed a lot,” she laughs), and circuit training on the back deck.
Watching the Ferns play, she felt a pang of envy. "But I knew I wasn’t in the right space to be there.”
Joining the Magic didn’t come without challenges. Covid illness and injuries constantly changed the face of the team, and they were well into the season before finally fielding their original line-up.
“At times we felt like we had everything possible thrown at us… which almost made it a bit easier to be like: ‘We just have to play netball now; there’s nothing more we can do’,” Mes says. “It was literally about getting out there and appreciating we were still able to play.
“And I was just more relaxed and thinking about the enjoyment of it. Being somewhere different and freshening it up a bit.”
The “real biggie” for her, though, was regaining her shooting mojo. She credits Magic head coach Mary-Jane Araroa for giving her shooters licence to go to the post whenever they were in the shooting circle.
And Mes relished the chance to work with former Silver Fern captain Ekenasio, who found her return to play after the birth of her second child “immensely challenging”. It was no great shock when she didn’t make the Silver Ferns 12, but as a reserve for the Commonwealth Games, she could be called in if Nweke doesn't recover fully from her ankle injury.
“Meels is incredible,” Mes says. “Towards the end of the season we got more of a rhythm on in our combo. We were able to mix up between goal shoot and goal attack, keeping the defenders having to readjust. Hopefully we get to play together again next season.”
Mes’ ability to play strongly in either shooting role helped her Ferns’ return. She doesn’t mind which bib she wears: “I’m not sure I have a preference; it’s good to keep on top of both skillsets.”
Erasing memories of 2018
With her new attitude, Mes doesn’t see these Commonwealth Games as an opportunity to right the wrongs of 2018, when an unhappy, disjointed Ferns team finished fourth (after a glittering record of two golds and three silvers at previous Games). She struggled on the Gold Coast, with her shooting inconsistent coming off the bench.
“It definitely took a while to recover from that experience,” she says. “I was pretty grateful to have the opportunity to play for the Ferns again after that.
“But I hadn’t thought ‘Right I need to go to another Games and make this right’. I was very much like ‘If it happens, that’s awesome’. So it’s super exciting to be going again.”
Mes’ very first selection for the Silver Ferns in 2012 was a bolt from the blue. She’d played just one quarter in the ANZ Championship for the Mystics when New Zealand coach Wai Taumaunu picked her after she stood out at a trial for her athleticism and speed (Taurua, incidentally, was assistant coach).
She failed to make an impression at wing attack in her first internationals, but her perseverance and her reinvention since then have been admirable.
Mes reflects on the past decade. “I’m still the same person. But I’ve definitely learned a lot,” she says. “And I think my reasons and my mindset are the biggest things that have changed.
“I don’t know how long I’ll keep playing for, so I just want to enjoy it while I can.”
