Steel's Kate Heffernan to miss more games after knee injury
Kate Heffernan.
Photo:
Photosport
Steel co-captain Kate Heffernan will have to wait longer to get her ANZ Premiership season underway.
The Silver Ferns midcourter was not able to take the court in the Steel's opening game against the Tactix on Sunday after injuring her knee during training on May 8th.
The injury had now been fully assessed, which shows she has hyperextended her right knee, which typically take between two and four weeks to heal.
Heffernan said she was fully focused on getting back amongst the action.
"Unfortunately, injuries are one of the realities of elite sport but that doesn't make it any less heartbreaking not be able to get out there with my team," she said.
"We have all worked incredibly hard during the preseason and deserve to reap the rewards of that now the competition has started.
"Watching from the sidelines definitely fuels my determination. I will be following the expert advice of our medical team to the letter and doing everything in my power to play as soon as I get the green light, but I know I have to be patient."
Liana Leota.
Photo:
© Photosport Ltd 2025 www.photosport.nz
When the Steel lost to the Tactix 57-50 in Christchurch they had to call on their assistant coach - former Silver Fern Liana Leota, and they may do so again.
The 40-year-old was named on the bench for the southerners and did not look out of place when she spent 10 minutes on court at wing attack for her old club in the third quarter.
Last year Leota stepped down from her role as England Roses technical coach and her position as Leeds Rhinos director of netball to take up the role at the Steel.
Her last season playing domestic netball was in 2022 in the England league.
Heffernan travelled with the team in a leadership role for the opening game against the Tactix in Christchurch.
"Naturally I want to be out there playing my part, but I have the upmost faith in our entire squad to get the job done regardless of who is wearing the bibs. We have prepared for every scenario," she said.
The Steel also used Stars training partner Khanye-Lii Munro-Nonoa as cover in the defensive end for Dakota Thomas.
The 24-year-old Thomas made the move to New Zealand after being a training partner at the NSW Swifts.
But with the
Stars suffering an injury crisis, Munro-Nonoa might be needed back in Auckland.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero
,
a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
3 hours ago
- RNZ News
Basketball: Breakers to-do list still includes securing imports
Petteri Koponen Coach of the Breakers Photo: © Photosport Ltd 2024 Following an off-season change of ownership and a change of focus the Breakers believe they are ahead of their rivals a few months out from the start of the NBL season. Breakers president of basketball operations Dillon Boucher has a long to-do list that he has been chipping away at since March, when he got appointed to the role by the new ownership group lead by Marc Mitchell, but as the start of the season gets closer he's satisfied with the progress made. "We're really happy with the roster we're pulling together and it's certainly starting to find some shape. "When I compare where we're at with other teams in the NBL, I feel like we're right on track and ahead of quite a few teams. "We'll spend some time up at the NBA Summer League (next month) up in Vegas to really try and find some some talent up there as well as working really hard behind the scenes to identify the players that we really want to have a closer, deeper look at." On contract so far are Alex McNaught, Carlin Davison, Izayah Le'Afa, Kaia Isaac, Karim Lopez, Max Darling, Reuben Te Rangi, Rob Loe, Sam Mennenga, Sean Bairstow, Tacko Fall and Taylor Britt. With nine of those players New Zealanders , Fall is the only import on the list. Breakers guard Parker Jackson-Cartwright. Photo: photosport Getting American guard Parker Jackson-Cartwright back for a third season was an option the Breakers were looking at. "We're having lots of conversations with lots of different agents and there's been some really positive conversations with some agents. "We're not in a rush to sign these [imports] the locals are always the ones you want to get signed as quick as possible because there's obviously fewer of them around, but with the imports there's so many around and it's about really doing your homework on them and making sure they fit in with the local talent you've got and can bring what the team needs in those specific roles that you bring them in as." Boucher did not think they would have trouble attracting import talent. "The NBL itself is an attractive league, but New Zealand is an attractive place to be, getting to come down here in a shorter league compared to Europe and compared to some of the Asian leagues as well, we're a shorter league and they can finish the season here and either take a break, or they can then continue and go back to Europe and play the remaining few months in Europe, or they can go to Puerto Rico, or they can go to China, there's these other leagues still going on around the world when ours finishes." Reports out of Australia point to the introduction of an in-season tournament for the 2025-26 NBL season. The tournament would be played as mid-week games and each team would play four games in the tournament, two home and two away. Games would count towards the team's regular season record but would also have a scoring system for winning quarters and whole games that counted towards the tournament. The tournament silverware would be decided by a Grand Final between the two teams with the most accumulated points. An in-season tournament has been part of the NBA since the 2023-24 season with the NBA Cup giving teams additional prize money and another trophy to play for. The NBL version has used that as inspiration. Giannis Antetokounmpo #34, MarJon Beauchamp #3, Damian Lillard #0 and Brook Lopez #11 of the Milwaukee Bucks celebrate with the championship trophy after the Bucks defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder 97-81 to win the championship game of the Emirates NBA Cup. Photo: ETHAN MILLER The change to the NBL would mean each of the 10 teams would play 33 games in the season, up from the 29 in previous regular seasons. Boucher could not confirm the in-season tournament before the NBL released the schedule but said "certainly keep an eye out because the league is always looking to really push those boundaries, which I love, which gives the clubs more opportunities". More games did not mean a longer season, according to Boucher. "It's still going to probably run around the same time. It's not going to run much longer than within what it has previously so it's not going to impact those players going abroad afterwards." The pre-season tournament, known as NBL Blitz, will move away from the Gold Coast where it has been held for the past two seasons and head to Australia's capital, Canberra. Last season the pre-season tournament was held in September but this season it is reportedly going to start in August. Breakers coach Petteri Koponen was a late signing last season after the previous coach left his contract early and had a limited build-up with the team. Boucher said pre-season would be different this time. "It'll probably be different in a slightly different way this year because we are likely to have some of our players involved with the Tall Blacks, which will be involved in the Asia Cup, so and that campaign runs quite late into August. "So we will have to be conscious of those guys being implemented back into the group, and we're just working through what the pre-season looks like now, between where the Blitz is going to be and when that's going to be, and then also what other games we'll be structuring around that to ensure that the team has as much preparation as possible leading into that first game of the season. Boucher said discussions were being had with other NBL clubs about more opportunities for pre-season friendlies but there were plenty of logistics to consider. "Are we going to be playing games in New Zealand? Are we going to be playing games in Australia, or are we going to be playing games, further afield than Australia? So it's a bit of a juggling act at the moment working on what players will we have available, what dates they'll be available, and then what time the team will start the pre-season and be able to get enough prep time in." Boucher did know that NBA games were off the table this season. Matt Mooney #13 of the New Zealand Breakers drives past Dillon Jones #3 of the Oklahoma City Thunder Photo: AFP The Breakers squeezed in three games against NBA opposition the course of a couple of weeks during the last NBL season which added to the players' travel schedule and was criticised for what the benefit was. "We have no plans to be playing in the NBA this year, but it's certainly not off the cards for future years. If it fits in with our schedule, we certainly would be open to the opportunity to have a look at it and but for the season, because of the short turnaround, we've decided that we won't be looking at an NBA pre season game." NBA team, the New Orleans Pelicans, would be playing in Australia against Melbourne-based NBL sides in October and Boucher would be keen to see something similar here. "If there was an opportunity to bring an NBA team to New Zealand we would 100 percent jump at it. With the fact that we've got an NBA team coming to Australia as the first step, and obviously it's going to be fantastic for the league to have two teams going up against an NBA team on Australian soil." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
3 hours ago
- RNZ News
Ryan Fox provides a few golfing tips ahead of the US Open
Ryan Fox. Photo: photosport "Letting go of the outcome" is the biggest tip golfer Ryan Fox has for anyone who has been following his incredible run on the PGA Tour. Fox heads into the third major of the year, the US Open, on the back of two victories in the last month. Only world number one Scottie Scheffler can claim to have a better recent record with three wins in his last four starts including the PGA Championship. Fox won the Myrtle Beach Classic in May to qualify for the PGA and last weekend's victory at the Canadian Open earned him a spot in the US Open at Oakmont in Pennsylvania. So what is one thing that Fox can tell others about mastering the game of golf? "The best way to play golf is to pick a shot, commit to it and then not worry about where the ball's going to go," Fox told First Up . "You've got no control over it once it leaves the face anyway so letting go of that outcome is the most important thing, and that's really hard to do." That piece of advice has certainly helped Fox in recent weeks. He had won eight times around the world until committing to the US PGA Tour two years ago. He struggled initially on the Tour but has turned it around this year and in particular this month, with his season earnings now standing at NZ$5.5 million. So the best way to play golf is to forget about the outcome. "If you do that you learn some acceptance around bad shots too. "Anyone that plays golf has had some unlucky bounces which can really piss you off, so if you've got some acceptance there as well it will certainly help your golf game." Fox will probably need some acceptance and patience around the Oakmont course is Pennsylvania this week. It is known as one of the toughest tests in golf. New Zealand golfer Ryan Fox hits out of a bunker. Photo: Matthew Harris / PHOTOSPORT Fox, who hasn't played Oakmont before, had first hand experience of the course during a practice round this week when he threw a ball into the rough to practise getting out and it took him two minutes to find his ball. "It was only a yard away from where I was looking, but I couldn't see it until I was standing on top of it. "The golf course is an absolute beast, it's long and its rough is nasty." The last time the US Open was played at Oakmont in 2016, Dustin Johnson won with a four-under par score, with just four players finishing under par. "It's going to beat some people up this week, the greens are incredibly tricky. It's renowned for having some scary, scary fast greens, and they're very slopey. I'd liken the slopes to Augusta." Fox said players will have to accept that they're probably not going to have a great round. "For the most part you've just got to go out and try to hit really good shots and accept you're going to hit it in some spots that you just got to almost laugh at and just try to get it back in play and not make a double bogey. "You're going to make plenty of those (double bogeys) this week if you lose your head a little bit." If he does have the odd bad shot Fox can also look back at the second shot he had on the fourth play-off hole in Toronto last week... a shot that more or less won him the Canadian Open. "It's easily the best shot I've ever hit , and I've got it saved on my phone and I've watched it a bunch." Fox will play alongside Byeong Hun An of Korea and American Joe Highsmith during the first two rounds.
RNZ News
3 hours ago
- RNZ News
Lawnmower racers battle it out at Fieldays: 'Cheapest motorsport you can do'
Lawnmower racing is set to draw crowds at Fieldays. Photo: Supplied / Fieldays There are several rural sporting competitions at agricultural events: shearing, wood chopping and the tractor pull. And for the first time this year, lawnmower racing is coming to Fieldays in the form of the Red Bull Cut It competition. Barry Dawe from the New Zealand Lawnmower Racing Association told First Up the sport has been gaining popularity around the country because of its accessibility. The machines are modified ride-on mowers with the cutting blades removed. Dawe said the engines range from 400cc to 1000cc. "They're pretty big engines and and people tend to think oh it's only a lawnmower engine, but you think of a 500cc motorbike, that's the sort of torque these things have got," Dawe said. "So there's some angry mowers here." Racers sit either on, in, or around the mower and they are not strapped in, Dawe said. Race day is Saturday and the mowers are on display through the week. "So we've got a slightly smaller track than we normally race on, but we've made it so we can do lots of drifting, lots of noise. We've got a jump," Dawe told First Up . "We've got some CO2 cannons that are going to go off. So it's going to be a great old day. We've got over 30 mowers here and we're going to rip up the ground." He said the track is lined with hay bales, and they have tried to make it as wide as they can to allow for passing and drifting. "You don't have to go over the jump, but obviously, if you do, you'll probably get some bonus points and maybe win a trophy." And there's enough straight to get up a bit of speed. About 50 or 60km/h, Dawe said. "We have people from Hawke's Bay, a couple from Taranaki, Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty. There's a big contingent down there in Christchurch as well, but obviously it was a bit far for them to travel up. "It's the cheapest motorsport you can do in New Zealand. You don't have to spend a million bucks. You can if you want, but there's no point because the competitiveness is limited [because] you're racing on grass. "It evens everybody out, so even the big motors on certain tracks will be no faster than the small motors. It's all about how you drive and the fun of tinkering." As part of the event, hairdressing and barbering students from Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology will be there with their blades offering haircuts. "And we've got a wheel of fortune that you can spin through," Dawe said. "So once you spin the wheel, you get different haircuts ... We've got skullet, mullet, fade, buzz, undercut and a 'joker', which is the hairdresser's choice. "You walk up here, spin the wheel and you never know what you're going to get. But everyone's a winner." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
