Former Silver Ferns captain Ana Noovao has died aged 58. <\/p>\n
Netball New Zealand said she died peacefully on Sunday in Rockhampton, Queensland following a long illness. <\/p>\n
Noovao rose through the youth ranks of New Zealand netball in the 1980s before making the Silver Ferns in 1989 aged 21.<\/p>\n
She was made vice-captain for the 1990 Commonwealth Games and at the 1991 World Cup, and was elevated to captain a year later. <\/p>\n
She played 23 Tests in black across four seasons at centre, wing attack and wing defence, and was known throughout for her “calm temperament that steadied those around her”. <\/p>\n
Netball New Zealand president Tina Karaitiana described her as “a gifted attacker with natural creativity and a beautiful feed”, saying she was “marked for the black dress early”.<\/p>\n
It said she toured Canada with the New Zealand Young Internationals in 1986 and captained the New Zealand Under-21 side at the 1987 World Youth Championships before making her Silver Ferns debut against Australia in April 1989.<\/p>\n
“Ana carried the captaincy of the Silver Ferns with real grace, and she gave the game back far more than it ever asked of her, as a player, as a coach, and as a leader for Cook Islands netball,” said Karaitiana. <\/p>\n
“Our thoughts are with her family, her teammates and everyone she taught along the way.”<\/p>\n
Across her career, Noovao would not play on Sundays for religious reasons. <\/p>\n
After her playing days finished, Noovao took up coaching \u2013 taking the Cook Islands to a seventh-place finish at the 2007 World Cup. <\/p>\n
Posts from family and friends on social media paid tribute to Noovao. <\/p>\n
She was described as a beloved mother, daughter, sister, grandmother, aunty, and friend. <\/p>\n
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including why power prices are unlikely to fall, and a bizarre twist in an Australian homicide investigation. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Silver Ferns captain Ana Noovao has died aged 58. Netball New Zealand said she died peacefully on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,6430,17771,213],"class_list":["post-565140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pacific-islands","tag-silver-ferns","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565140","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=565140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}