TE PAEA SELBY-RICKET | Silver Ferns shooter recaps Constellation Cup win against the Diamonds

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Scotty (0:15)

Hey Iz.

Izzy (0:16)

Yeah?

Scotty (0:16)

You know when you see athletes and you're like, holy hecka, they've turned back the clock here.

Izzy (0:22)

Yeah?

Scotty (0:22)

Well, there was one of those on show the other night, wasn't there?

Izzy (0:25)

I know.

Scotty (0:25)

You know who I'm talking about, don't you? We are talking about the one and only Te Paea Selby-Ricket who joins us on the line out of the Silver Ferns. Te Paea, good morning.

Izzy (0:33)

Te Paea.

Te Paea Selby-Ricket (0:35)

Good morning, Scotty. Good morning, Izzy. Thank you for that lovely introduction.

Scotty (0:38)

Holy heck, girl. You're running around there like a 17 year old. What's going on?

Te Paea Selby-Ricket (0:44)

Yeah, it was nice. It was really nice to be back, obviously, being away from the environment for a few years now. So I was saying to the girls yesterday, it felt like my debut again. But yeah, no, it was awesome to get out there again and get a good win against the Australian side.

Scotty (0:59)

Oh, it was a great win. Just domination there. I mean, the way that you guys just went at them constantly, just gave them no breathing room. It just shows how much the confidence has grown within the squad, Te Paea, in a very short space of time. Would that be a fair assessment?

Te Paea Selby-Ricket (1:16)

Yeah, I think the team's been building over the last few years. We've got some freaks on our team. Obviously, Kelly Drury had an outstanding game, got into their hedge really early. I've played against her plenty of times before, so I fully sympathise with them. That lean over the shot is honestly the best in the world.

She had a great game and so did a lot of the girls. Grace, obviously, always good. Kimura, I thought, started and had a really strong game too. So we've got world-class players in our team and they're performing really well.

Izzy (1:43)

Te Paea, it's great to see you back out there.

I wanna ask you about your role when you're trying to compliment a cheat code and Grace Nowicki. How do you navigate that? What is your role? When you got your opportunities, you're like a sneaky little human that just comes from absolutely nowhere out of the blind spot and gets underneath the goal. So can you give us a little bit more of a detailed understanding of your role and how you complement Grace Nowicki?

Te Paea Selby-Ricket (2:11)

Yeah, obviously, like you said, she is a bit of a cheat code. She's had an outstanding few years. For me, my strength, I guess, is my vision. So just letting the ball go into her. She obviously holds a good space and she's a big target back there.

Yeah, just a bit of experience, I guess, and vision to just put the ball into the right space. Still a bit of work to do in that space. Haven't played much with Grace in the past, so yeah, it's really exciting to be able to come in and keep building on some connections. And hopefully, that'll just keep developing and getting better over the course of the series.

Scotty (2:44)

What would you say is the paramount phrase that is used within the squad, Te Paea? Is something philosophical that the team gets around?

Te Paea Selby-Ricket (2:55)

No, I don't think so. I just think there's a lot of belief in this group. Obviously, coming off the back of Commonwealth Games gold, they've had a couple of tough years.

And I think we're now in the position where we're not just happy to be able to compete against Australia. We actually want to win. We know that to be number one in the world, to get that number one world ranking, we need to win all four games. So we're really going for that.

Izzy (3:17)

Te Paea, this is probably a deep question, but I'm going to ask you, what is the difference between Te Paea gone by to the Te Paea now? What have you been up to? And just going on on that one, what was that experience like going to Australia and competing?

Te Paea Selby-Ricket (3:32)

Yeah, I absolutely loved it. Playing week in, week out against all these international styles. You got Jamaicans, Australians, English players in there. So yeah, you really just get more of appreciation for the game.

And I guess, just getting a bit of perspective. I was being away from the game for a while. You do miss being around the girls. And I guess I've had a few experiences. I've done a bit of travel, a bit of study, a bit of work. Just being like a normal person, not an athlete. So you sort of come back into the environment with a bit more of appreciation. Especially when you walk out against the sold out crowd at Spark Arena the other night, it was unreal. So yeah.