\u201cIt\u2019s not just about the game. It\u2019s everything you do away from it, recovery, nutrition, sleep, mental skills, extra training. You can\u2019t just turn up and play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taylor grew up in Whang\u0101rei, following in the footsteps of her mother and older sisters.<\/p>\n
Though elite netball opportunities weren\u2019t always easy to find.<\/p>\n
She had height, she had touch, but she didn\u2019t have the conveyor belt of talent development that players in bigger centres enjoy.<\/p>\n
What she did have was a father who understood elite sport better than most.<\/p>\n
Her dad, former All Black Glenn Taylor, who played for Northland, the Chiefs, Hurricanes and Blues, kept the message simple when selections didn\u2019t go her way.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s always been my biggest supporter, and we connect through sport because he understands the situations I\u2019m going through.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe used to say \u2018cream always rises to the top\u2019. Whenever I didn\u2019t make a team or things got hard, he\u2019d remind me to keep going and eventually it would pay off.\u201d<\/p>\n
And it has. She\u2019s now a contracted Premiership shooter, a New Zealand U21 representative, and a World Youth Cup silver medallist.<\/p>\n
Her older sister Jessie, a defender, has also been a Magic training partner and NZU21 squad member.<\/p>\n
The two sisters were signed together as Magic training partners in 2024, a rare moment.<\/p>\n
Recently, Magic coaches have been expanding Kate\u2019s game, giving her time at goal attack to sharpen her movement and decision\u2011making.<\/p>\n
Netball NZ describes her as a naturally astute holding shooter with a high\u2011accuracy radar.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year was a huge learning year, so I\u2019m really enjoying being out there and growing every week,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the season, I want to have no regrets and know that every time I stepped on court, I gave it everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic will play the Stars at Claudelands Arena on Saturday at 4pm.<\/p>\n
Graeme \u201cMintie\u201d Mead is a sports commentator, the host of the radio show Waikato All Sports Breakfast and a Newstalk ZB overnight host. He is also a councillor on the Hamilton City Council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s not just about the game. It\u2019s everything you do away from it, recovery, nutrition, sleep, mental skills,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[12465,4527,78,2517,1906,111,139,69,13180,6926,8466,61484,213,3057,163,810,25361,26157],"class_list":["post-448613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-anz","tag-doesnt","tag-in","tag-kate","tag-magic","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-premiership","tag-season","tag-second","tag-shooter","tag-sports","tag-steps","tag-taylor","tag-up","tag-waste","tag-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}