A formal complaint over a post-game handshake. A coach barred from sitting on the bench. LINDA PEARCE delves inside the Pies-Vixens rivalry.
When Kim Ravaillion arrived as one of all-star Magpies’ most trumpeted recruits, she was a little surprised by the intensity of a new rivalry that surpassed what the dual-premiership Firebird had experienced against sworn foes the NSW Swifts.
“Obviously being with Collingwood, you were kind of hated from the get-go, and then to come up against the other Victorian team was just like, ‘Oh, my Lord! What have I signed up for?’’’ Ravaillion recalls of her derby initiation against the Vixens in 2017.
The competitiveness over her three seasons in black-and-white was two-fold: striving to be the team in Melbourne, and each wanting to beat the other. Desperately. Even if, according to former Vixen-Pie-Vixen Caitlin Thwaites, perhaps the establishment team wanted it just a little bit more.
Collingwood had signed the Vixens’ captain Madi Browne and emerging shooter Alice Teague-Neeld among their original 10 — adding to the exodus that included Geva Mentor and Kelsey Browne to the Sunshine Coast Lightning and leaving a talented yet inexperienced core under coach Simone McKinnis, who had declined an offer to switch camps to the AFL-backed team.
“I can see why they thought we stole their players, but we were just, you know, growing the game of netball!’’ Ravaillion quips. “For me, I’d just made the move from Queensland, so I was just like, ‘Oh, my God, what have I just walked into?’’’
Indeed, having come swaggering into — or across — town, the Pies were the raging premiership favourites before having played a game. And their first, appropriately, was against the Vixens on a charged February night at John Cain Arena.
Stunningly, the incumbents prevailed 58-55, while Ravaillion was dragged at half-time. More than seven years later, on the eve of Monday’s farewell stoush at a sold-out JCA, the midcourter’s original opponent, Kate Moloney, still rates the occasion among her most cherished.
“We had a group of girls who were a big part of Victorian netball, but a really young group, and the build up and even the headlines in the paper were that the Pies were gonna be undefeated and we weren’t gonna win a game, so to beat them in round one was incredible,’’ Moloney recalls.
“People ask what my favourite games are and I put that 2017 round one against the Pies up with the premierships that I’ve won.’’
While most insiders rate those early contests as particularly intense, it has rarely mattered where each team has been on the ladder during the 15 previous duels, which included two final rounds that allowed Collingwood to pinch a top-four berth, and extended even to this year’s centre-pass controversy in round two.
Yet the determination to prevail also spilled off the court, from who sat where to who left T-shirts on the seats for the other club’s supporters to find. Ravaillion was acutely aware of some of it, but oblivious to other shenanigans.
“Oh, my Lord,’’ she exclaims, when CODE Sports fills her in on a couple.
“I had no idea!’’
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All players and game-day staff must be listed on the team sheet, with no changes or additions allowed after the prescribed cut-off time. In round one, 2018, Vixens’ assistant coach Di Honey’s name was missing, and the oversight acted upon by the Pies, as the tensions between the two sides ramped up.
“One of the things that I always remember really clearly was when they got Di kicked off the bench,’’ McKinnis said. “For whatever reason Di’s name wasn’t on the team list, and they obviously picked it up.
“They could have addressed it, and we could have fixed it in time, but they waited and then said, ‘She’s not on the list, she can’t be there’. It just seemed calculated to me, and it was just before the game started having to go through, “OK, Di, you’ve got to go sit in the stand’. It was quite funny, we were laughing about it, but that’s how intense it was.’’
The coaches’ handshake after the Vixens’ subsequent one goal victory was interesting, too. McKinnis did not share that story, but several sources confirmed Collingwood’s Kristy Keppich-Birrell lodged a complaint with Netball Australia, and it’s also understood that then-broadcaster Nine was approached for footage to use as evidence of the allegedly aggressive gesture.
None was available.
“There was unnecessary things on both sides,’’ says Thwaites, who was not offered a new Collingwood contract in 2019, but thrown a lifeline by the Vixens after spearhead Mwai Kumwenda’s ACL tear, before retiring after the 2020 premiership in the Queensland hub.
“It was both teams always really wanting to get the win and take those bragging rights and things but, for me, I felt there was a lot of petty stuff happening behind the scenes that just fuelled the fire for the players.
“Whether it was wanting to have this home bench or that home bench, trying to disrupt the other team. Or, no, we’re not going to let them have those change rooms or these change rooms. So each team agitating each other in those ways, but I just tried not to engage in any of it, just let the netball do the talking and have good battles out on court.
“And the individuals on each team are actually really good friends with each other, but then as a collective the two teams absolutely hated each other, so for me it was a really interesting perspective – having felt it from the Magpies’ side and then having switched over and felt it from the Vixens’ side as well.’’
Thwaites believes it was the latter group “probably feeling threatened on home territory and things like that’’, whereas the anti-Collingwood sentiment was broader, as it is in football. As it has always been.
“Every team was trying to put their best out against you, because everybody had that rivalry with Collingwood,” she continues. “So, yes, there was a little bit extra because of the Victorian thing, but for Vixens it was more of a thing. At least that’s the way I felt, anyway.’’
Sharni Norder, another foundation Vixen who became a Pies’ original after stints elsewhere and has now returned to the NV-owned team as a specialist defensive coach, notes the many layers to the enmity, but also stresses there were no issues between the athletes.
“There was just so much stuff going on that made the rivalry deeper, which was just so funny, and I think that by the Vixens beating us that first time that was almost what made the rivalry so strong, because they were out to prove themselves and, after that, we always wanted to get one back at them.
“Vixens could get under Collingwood’s skin and it just shows why netball is so much more than that physical game. It’s about getting under the skin of your opponent and you wouldn’t find two teams that would do it to each other more.
“Rather than it being like a, ‘Oh, well, you forgot to put the (assistant) coach’s name down on the team sheet, that’s fine, you can still sit on the bench’, which I’m pretty sure any other team would have done, it was almost like Collingwood still carried that air of arrogance with them even though we were a brand new team, which probably wasn’t helpful.’’
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It did, however, add spice to passionate contests that were usually treated like mini grand finals. The Vixens are ahead 8-5 in regular round clashes and 1-0 in finals, with half decided by five goals or less.
“I’ve absolutely loved the rivalry, having two Melbourne teams here in Victoria, and I think it’s grown and grown and we’ve had some epic battles over the years,’’ says Moloney, who has played in all 14.
“Early on the Vixens definitely had the up on the Magpies, but over the last couple of years that’s started to even out a bit more. Honestly, there’s no game I look forward to every year more than the ones against Collingwood, and then to have them on Queen’s Birthday the last couple of years, or King’s Birthday as it will be this year, just adds to it as well.’’
Few were more stirring than the final round of 2019, under the short-lived bonus points system, in which the surging Pies — without absent head coach Rob Wright — were fresh from upsetting the Fever and Swifts and left needing to win the match and all four bonus points or three bonus points plus an overall margin of seven-plus to slip into fourth spot. And did.
Only, a week later, to suffer an 11-goal belting from the stung Vixens in the minor semi at the State Netball Centre. Another Moloney favourite, that one, considering it was at “the home of netball in Victoria for so long, and to have that final there and that atmosphere around that. Amazing’’.
Again in round 14 last season, with the Vixens confirmed as minor premiers, Collingwood needed to get within a few goals to deny the Swifts the final spot in the four. And, after a late miss from Kumwenda, got there, by one. “That was just full-on, that game. We were spewing,’’ says McKinnis, whose team took the points but, by failing to thwart Collingwood, almost felt like they’d lost.
In the previous clash, in round seven, former Vixens’ great Renae Ingles was enticed from retirement for a cameo for the Covid-depleted Pies, pleasantly surprising coach Nicole Richardson. Her old teammates, 10-goal losers, less so. “Oh, my God. I forgot about Renae,’’ says Moloney. “We weren’t happy with that!’’
So to the most recent. Collingwood, trying to maintain a narrow lead, was denied a centre pass by an umpiring error late in the game, and pipped 62-61 by a Kumwenda two-pointer.
Did the fact it happened against the Vixens make it more painful?
McKinnis: “It would have. We obviously had no idea until after the game, but they would have hated that it was us, and MJ getting the Super Shot after the buzzer. But I acknowledge that that was a stuff-up.’’
Richardson: “I don’t think so, cos it was that painful anyway. I don’t think it would have mattered (who the opposition was) cos the outcome was impacted — I don’t care what people say. That impacted the outcome drastically.’’
And Norder: “I wonder if it wasn’t Vixens would Collingwood have noticed?’’
Yet although it can never be said definitively to have changed the result, Collingwood has not been quite the same team since.
You couldn’t script some of this stuff.
“Absolutely not,’’ says Thwaites. “But it adds to the stories that these two teams have been able to produce. That’s what engages people, and they’ve had so many across the years.’’
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Sympathy has been a less frequent element than drama, with McKinnis admitting the rivalry element simmered down a little during the Magpies’ annus horribilis in Queensland in 2020 when, depleted by pregnancies and injuries, the unhappy group went 1-13.
“There was that patch there, especially when we were in the hub (that it felt like) in some ways you were all in it together, if that makes sense,’’ says McKinnis. “Anything and everything that could go wrong was going wrong for them, so there was an element of empathy for what they were going through.’’
As, the next year, it did for the Vixens, who inherited the wooden spoon after losing captain Liz Watson for the season, with two of their own 13 defeats — including one by a whopping 16 goals, the biggest in any Melbourne derby — coming against the Pies.
Norder is fascinated how Monday’s swansong will play out, amid the emotion of Collingwood’s penultimate game and last in Melbourne before the netball program ends.
“It’ll be interesting to see how the Vixens go about it now that there’s almost a bit of sympathy for the Collingwood side, so I don’t know if they’ll let that in or not,’’ says Norder. “It’s just going to add that extra dynamic to it, I guess.’’
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McKinnis spoke to her fourth-placed team on Tuesday about what’s ahead, as well as what has gone before.
“It’s just been full-on, but you’ve got to love it,’’ was the message. To enjoy and embrace the occasion while acknowledging the significance of it being the last one.
That first remains so vivid, though, as does the “poor Vixens” narrative successfully rewritten by a tight group that still contains Watson, Moloney, Jo Weston and Emily Mannix, compared with just Ash Brazill who’s gone the distance at the Magpies. “In some ways it was the making of us,’’ adds McKinnis, the dual premiership coach.
Moloney says both clubs have always been a study in contrasts, down to their rivals’ “black and dark” match-day environment at JCA, but wishes the differences extended to the dying Pies’ fate.
“I’ve explained it to a few people that you love to hate them. I love playing against them, we don’t lie that we want to beat them, and I think it’s really sad. I hoped so much that they were going to be able to stay in the competition, because I think the rivalry has built and it was going to continue to grow,’’ she says.
“I really feel for every single one of the players and staff at Collingwood. You can’t even really put yourself in that position to know what that would be like … but hopefully we can have a ripper last clash on Monday.’’
Norder, who retired at the end of 2018, is still working through how she feels about Collingwood’s demise. “I just wanted them to treat their netball team better and while that might have changed, I’m looking forward to someone that’s going to really invest in netball.
“I’m really sad about how it’s happened and I’m really feeling for the girls, but I think that whoever is going to take over (the eighth licence) will hopefully do a much better job.’’
Ravaillion ended up returning to the Firebirds in 2021 after the birth of her daughter Georgie. She laments the relative lack of leadership, strategy and professionalism during her time at Collingwood, plus the folly of combining 10 “chefs” in one kitchen and just expecting them to somehow get the recipe right and the job done.
Yet the former Diamond had also seen enough improvement more recently to have tipped her old team to win this year’s Super Netball title. “I thought Collingwood were going to smash everyone,’’ she says, noting the impact of the centre pass error, and the struggles from which there is now no coming back.
“It’s fricking devastating,’’ Ravaillion says. “You couldn’t help but get emotional when they beat the Adelaide T-birds, and to see the crowd that they had at that game, it was just like, ‘Oh, if they had just had that more often, then who knows?’ They could have kept going, but it is quite sad to see it all fall apart.’’
McKinnis will miss the rivalry that was as close to tribal as she has experienced. “It was real and it was right from the word go. It’s just that little bit extra special to get the win over the Magpies, as I’m sure they would say the same about getting the win over us.
“I am sad. I’m sad about the circumstances, I’m sad for the players and the staff and the coaches, I’m sad that it ends here, really, because yes there might be a new club that comes in, but it’s not the Magpies.’’
