England aim to ‘inspire’ netball legacy after World Cup silver

Chelsea Pitman wants netball and the England Roses to be at the front of conversations and media attention on women’s sports after they claimed a silver medal at the World Cup in South Africa.

England suffered a comprehensive 61-45 defeat to Australia, who lifted their 12th World Cup, pulling clear after half-time to highlight their experience and dominance in the sport.

The Roses had beaten Australia 56-55 in the group stages but could not pull off the same feat when it came down to the contest for gold.

England knocked out the defending champions New Zealand in the semi-finals but appeared overawed by the occasion in the final match, and ultimately fell short of replicating their memorable 2018 Commonwealth Games victory.

“I think extremely proud of what we were able to achieve looking back at the whole tournament,” Pitman told The Independent. “I think it was just such an enjoyable time. I know I’ve looked back at other World Cups and Commonwealth Games and it’s just such a stressful event and I think for whatever reason we had a mix of such fun.

“The youngsters bringing in that naivety of the occasion made our group just really enjoy every single day and the opportunities it presented, so I think overall it was a really enjoyable time in South Africa.”

This year has been heralded as one of women’s sports with the Fifa Women’s World Cup, the Women’s Ashes, Women’s T20 World Cup and the Solheim Cup all taking place in a single calendar year.

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While Netball had its shining moment in 2018, Pitman hopes netball can capitalise on the growth of women’s sports globally throughout this year.

“We absolutely love seeing women’s sport dominate in the headlines and getting the crowds, the numbers, the hype, the talk, all the things that we love seeing around all female sports, we just want netball, we want the England Roses to be talked about and be at the front of that,” Pitman said.

“The Lionesses are paving the way and they’re having an amazing time down under and you just look at the crowds and the media coverage and everything they’re getting and we’re like, ‘What’s our role in making sure that we get some of that as well?’ Hopefully other sports, other female sports, just jump on board, pumping our tyres too.”

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After 2018, 135,000 more people took to the court to take part in netball, and a further 160,000 after the World Cup in England in 2019, and the growth of the sport is something the team is passionate about.

“We named before coming into the World Cup things that we wanted to achieve as Roses and one of those was making sure that we had a successful campaign, but that we help our sport grow and head in a direction that we haven’t seen it, which is professionalising it, making sure that we become more full-time athletes and that our league at home, the Netball Super League, grows as well,” Pitman added.

“We really hope that this World Cup has inspired people to want to tune into the TV to watch netball, get themselves membership to domestic competitions and come and watch us play when we’re in England. So we’re hoping that that’s headed in the right direction and we know that our job as players is not just about getting success, it’s about what is our role now moving forward for our game to grow.

“Because we obviously love it, we work our butts off and we work so hard for us to achieve things, we just want to see our sport grow.”