Eva Bradley
Up before sunrise to walk her beloved elderly beagle, Irene van Dyk slips easily into the quiet of daily life. At dawn, Napier’s largest sports ground, Park Island, is transformed into Bark Island, where local pooches stretch their legs off-lead in a morning constitutional. Although Irene is still one of the world’s most recognisable netballers – 11 years after she retired her Silver Ferns goal shoot bib – here among the hounds, she’s simply Hunter’s mum.
In the late afternoon, she takes 14-year-old Hunter to the “the office”. It’s a green space ringed by trees, where dogs of all shapes and breeds congregate once their owners finish work.
“The humans chat while the dogs play,” laughs Irene.
“Though in Hunter’s case, he just sits and looks at all the other dogs chasing each other.”
When Irene and her husband Christie head off down the Hawke’s Bay coastline in their caravan most weekends. They only camp where dogs are welcome.
“Our lives revolve around the old boy now,” the most-capped netballer in history says.
“He’s such a dude.”
Now that the van Dyks’ only child, daughter Bianca, lives on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, Hunter receives the lion’s share of hands-on love and affection. But Bianca, now 27, still messages every day and calls once a week, checking in on her adored pet.
“She absolutely loves Hunter and whenever we talk, she sends him hugs and kisses,” says Irene.
“He used to perk up whenever he heard her voice, but now he’s deaf and half-blind, and he really doesn’t pay a lot of attention to us any more.”
Where once she floundered, trying to redefine who she was beyond the netball court, 53-year-old Irene has now found the perfect rhythm to her life. While she will always be remembered as one of the greatest players the game has ever seen, what she’s done since stepping away from the spotlight tells an equally rich story – one of rediscovery, purpose and staying grounded in the sport that’s shaped her life.
No longer chasing goals on court, nowadays Irene helps more New Zealanders to enjoy the game. She does this as Netball New Zealand’s participation manager, as a coach and a proud ambassador for the sport. She’s someone who simply wants others to feel the same sense of belonging that netball has given her.
“I’m living the dream,” says Irene, loving her home in the sun-drenched Hawke’s Bay.
“But I had to figure out what that dream looked like after I stopped playing.”
Back in 2014, walking away from international netball left a huge void for Irene. After playing her final test aged 42, she was deeply affected by her decision to call time on an unprecedented career. She grappled with a real sense of grief, loss and shed more than a few tears. While she was first and foremost a wife and mum to then teenager Bianca, netball was otherwise Irene’s world.
“That was probably the hardest thing I struggled with because everyone knew me as Irene the Silver Fern,” she reflects.
“I played netball full-time, so I had no other career. “It was quite a weird time in my life. If I was someone who suffered from depression, I could have fallen into a black hole. But I found things to do in my day to redefine myself. I set myself physical challenges to keep myself busy while I figured out what was next.”
She took up boxing, winning a Fight For Life charity bout and raising $100,000 for Hamilton Hospice, and competed in a triathlon with Bianca – “I nearly drowned swimming in the sea… Luckily people in kayaks were there to save me,” she says.
When Irene was shoulder-tapped for a junior development job at Netball Central, Irene felt as though all her stars had aligned.
“Here I was, offered a job in a sport that I absolutely love and I couldn’t believe my luck,” she enthuses.
“If young players ask me now what should they do, I say, ‘Mate, find out what lights your inner fire and go and volunteer while you’re still playing netball. Then when you finish, you have something to fall back on.’”
Irene was slowly building a new life. Still tied to her sport but on entirely different terms. Volunteering at Saturday netball, coaching, visiting schools – those roles became stepping stones. Now she’s writing policy and leading programmes for everyone from grassroots kids to walking netballers in their eighties.
“I never knew this side of netball even existed when I played,” she says, with a laugh of disbelief, “I know I’m going to be challenged every single day – but every day is such a nice day.”
Back on court
Even legends have doubts. And Irene’s was: could she still shoot a goal? And there was only one way to find out – on a very public stage. Shooting isn’t something Irene does for fun these days. Her Napier home doesn’t have a goalpost in the backyard like she did in her playing days, when Christie would hold up a broom to put her off her shot.
She’s now coaching the Hawke’s Bay netball team, but she doesn’t jump on court to show them how it’s done. So when she was asked to star in the new Three TV show Game On, where Silver Ferns legends of the past were put to the test back on court, Irene was both buzzing and a little freaked out.
“I had to go down the road to Tamatea Primary School to practise my shooting again,” says Irene, who scored 6000 goals across her 20 years in the international game.
And when she turned up on the set of the show, no-nonsense netball coach Yvonne Willering – who first chose South African-born Irene to play for New Zealand – immediately gave her a grilling.
“The first shot I took, I stepped in to the goalpost and Yvonne yelled at me, ‘What are you doing that for? Why don’t you just shoot it?’ And I said, ‘Because I don’t want to miss, Yvonne. I’m building my confidence here! I don’t know if I’m going to get the ball through the hoop any more. I need to be under the goalpost!’”
To Irene’s relief, she discovered she could still slot that ball through the hoop, even under pressure. She was one of seven past Silver Ferns lured back to the court in a concept similar to Match Fit, featuring former top rugby and league players tackling their mental and physical health. But Game On also introduced six promising young netballers to receive mentorship and inspiration from the former legends of the game.
The test for Irene and her team-mates was to not only get themselves game-ready to play in an elite tournament – facing top-tier sides and a team of international all-stars – but also to lift the young players alongside them.
“The rangatahi really had little idea who we were and what we’d done, which was really heartwarming,” recalls Irene.
“They came in without knowing us, so they were quite quiet for the first two weeks. “Then we did our first fitness test and one of the girls said, ‘Oh, we’re going to beat the oldies.’ I was like, ‘Excuse me?’ And they didn’t beat us – we nailed them all the way through.”
Irene set the bar in the plank fitness test, holding steady for four minutes.
“They were beautiful young girls and I’d like to think they learned a lot from us,” she says.
“One of them, Brooklyn, sent us a text after she’d played her first game of the season, saying, ‘Thank you for your guidance because I have grown so much in confidence.’ And that’s a win. Job done.”
Irene, who played for the Waikato Magic between 2003 and 2013 before switching to the Central Pulse, took plenty from the experience too – both physically and personally.
“Honestly, I didn’t think I was competitive any more,” she admits.
“Even when my netball team plays, I don’t care if we win or lose – as long as they play well and execute the game plan, I’m happy. I don’t get too uptight. But when I put that netball dress on again, it’s like ‘Woah! Where have you come from?’ I really wanted to win.”
Other than a handful of social and club netball games over the years, Irene hasn’t returned to professional netball since she played her last game for the Pulse in the ANZ Championship 10 years ago. (Unlike Casey Kopua, one of the Silver Ferns in Game On who’s made a shock comeback to the court for the Giants in this season’s Super Netball league in Australia, as a 40-year-old mum of three).
“When I stopped, that was it for me,” says Irene.
“I didn’t go back. I didn’t revisit it. That gate was closed.”
So she wasn’t surprised in her return to the court that she could still anticipate where the next pass might be heading, but getting to the ball was a lot harder.
“The scary part of this is that people remember you for what you were and now all of a sudden, you’re 53 and trying to play netball again,” she laughs.
“And you think, ‘Oh, maybe I shouldn’t have tried.’”
Irene has managed to keep her fitness at a healthy level since she retired, through running, walking and tramping.
“I’d like to think I’m fit, but holy moly, I’ll tell you what, on the netball court – those sharp movements, that whole agility and the stop, and the start and the take off – it’s a whole different ball game. But it was still so much fun,” she says.
The other bonus was reuniting with her old teammates – Casey, Adine Wilson, Temepara Bailey, Joline Johannson (neé Henry) and Daneka Tuineau (neé Wipiiti) – and coaches Yvonne and Yvette McCausland-Durie.
“Every weekend, you knew you were going to see your friends, you were going to go through challenges and you were going to play the game again,” Irene recalls.
“That was beautiful. We still try to catch up whenever we can. “When Christie and I went to see Bianca on the Sunshine Coast, I could catch up with Lauz [Laura Langman], Pole [Katrina Rore], Cat [Cathrine Tuivaiti] and Ria [Maria Folau]. We do whatever we have to do to stay in touch.”
So has that competitiveness and camaraderie tempted Irene to play netball again?
Not likely, she says.
She still loves watching the game and the new two-point shot introduced to the ANZ Premiership this season has brought “a whole new dynamic”, she says.
Would she have attempted a few super shots if the rule had been around in her day?
“Hell, no!” she exclaims.
“My legs are this long for a reason. With my split, I never needed to take a long shot.”
New beginnings
Since finding her way to stay in the game, this new chapter is proving just as rewarding for Irene. As participation manager for Netball NZ, she’s “making sure we have netball for everyone”. Last year, she was also the ambassador for Netball NZ’s centenary celebrations – the first netball association in the world to reach that milestone – and became one of 12 inaugural inductees to New Zealand’s Netball Hall of Fame.
“I knew after I finished playing, I would give back to the sport – volunteering at Saturday netball, helping out or coaching and making school visits,” she says.
“But now I’m writing policies and recommendations, and looking after our little Future Ferns, the grassroots game, right through to walking netball and no-limits netball for people with disabilities. “I just love talking to people, and being the one they can come to and ask questions or tell me things about what’s going on where they are. It’s a privilege to be in this position. “When you play elite netball, it’s such a secluded life, living in an environment where everything is put on for you. You don’t even ask questions – things just happen.”
In her latest role, Irene can work from home. She begins her day at 5.30am, taking Hunter on his stroll, before she takes a longer, faster walk alone, and is in front of her laptop by 8.30am – straight into online meetings with netball centres and clubs around the country.
“I schedule all my meetings for the morning – my people time – and afternoons are for actioning things,” she says.
She spends a couple of days at Netball NZ’s headquarters in Auckland every two months. Irene makes sure she’s in touch with Bianca, who lives in Mooloolaba, every day, and once a week they spend over an hour on a video call. Biana is holding down three jobs – as a barista, a cookie seller and a reformer Pilates instructor.
“Bianca’s so happy over there,” shares the doting mum.
“She says to me, ‘How much responsibility do I have, Mother? If I make a bad coffee, I’ll just make a new one. Everyone loves a cookie and everyone loves Pilates. It’s a win-win situation!’”
She’s fully embraced that her daughter – and best friend – is following a very different path to her own. At 27, Irene had played in two Netball World Cups for South Africa, was a schoolteacher and had a one-year-old baby.
A talented rower, Bianca took upba four-year scholarship at San Diego State University in 2016, where she studied kinesiology. She returned home to work for Netball Central as participation lead – herbmum’s old job – before heading across the Tasman.
“Nowadays, the young ones goboff on an adventure and experience stuff,” muses Irene.
“In our day, we needed a job, stability and loyalty, but today’s generation learn as much as they can before heading off on their next adventure to learn more. “I miss her, but I also want her to
do her own things and on her terms.”
Understanding younger generations has become a key part of Irene’s job. Drawing them to netball, then keeping them in the sport is one of her priorities.
“We’re still the largest participant sport in the country and the largest secondary school sport,” she explains.
“We’re doing really well but we have to be proactive to keep it that way. “The sporting landscape has changed since Covid. And the way kids look at sport and physical activity – and the way they look at life – has changed completely. Some kids just want to play with their friends. They love netball but they don’t want to get right to the top. And that’s okay.”
Irene also leads netball’s pioneering youth board, which gives rangatahi a voice in the game.
“It’s so important to listen to the younger ones because they’re in it, they know what it feels like,” she says.
“We’re lucky our youth board is so proactive – and they’re definitely not scared to give their opinion! Social media gets a bad rap but it also opens kids’ minds to the world around them.”
Leaving Wellington for Napier in 2019 was the best move Irene and Christie – now married for 30 years – believe they’ve made.
“It’s far from the rat race and people take the time to say hi,” she says.
Christie is a “happy camper” coaching the Hawke’s Bay cricket team. And Irene is head coach of the Noku Hawke’s Bay senior netball team, guiding them back into the NZ Open Champs last year. She’s also the team’s bus driver (she always drove the Silver Ferns team van as a player – “I was the oldest and most responsible, and I knew we were going to get places fast and safe!”
“Coaching this team is so much fun,” she enthuses.
“I’m all about creating a culture where people want to return all the time. I told the team at our first training, ‘If you say winning is your aim, I’m walking out.’ “We decided we wanted to play well, be proud and put a good product out on court. So it was so awesome to go to nationals and be both happy and competitive. Everyone got to play in every game, so everyone was invested in the team.”
Despite her taste of coaching at a high level, Irene has no desire to become a Silver Ferns coach.
“No, not at all!” she laughs.
“I love my job at Netball New Zealand way too much.”
Although sport continues to play a huge role in their lives, Irene and Christie try to escape most weekends, towing their caravan to Pourerere Beach, just an hour south of home.
“It’s just glorious, and the sunrises and sunsets are stunning,” she says.
Or they only need to drive 30 minutes to Ocean Beach and Waimārama to find themselves relaxed and reinvigorated. It’s during those weekend escapes that Irene reflects on the things she still hopes to achieve.
“I’d love for netball to stay the number-one participant sport and number-one female sport in New Zealand,” she says.
“I have got so much from netball and I want everyone to experience what I’ve experienced. That sense of belonging, that you want to be better than what you were last week. “We’re creating so many opportunities now – we have no-limits netball and people can play walking netball into their eighties. Someone said to me, ‘Netball is from the womb to the tomb.’ It’s absolutely epic! “Personally, I just want to stay healthy, happy and keep exploring New Zealand. It’s such a beautiful country and there’s still so much I haven’t seen yet. I definitely want to see more sunrises and sunsets.” AWW
Game On screens 7.30 Tuesdays on Three and streaming on ThreeNow.
