Geva Mentor interview: England Roses retirement, Leeds Rhinos opportunity and netball's need for Commonwealth Games to stay alive

England Netball’s most recognisable and important player through the last six Commonwealth Games cycles has, at 39 years of age, reached a transitional period in her life.

After 23 years playing for England, headlined by a Commonwealth title in Australia in 2018, she retired from international netball last summer after appearing in a sixth World Cup.

After 15 years playing club netball in Australia, at the pinnacle of the domestic game, she has come back home to play in Super League for Leeds Rhinos.

She will watch her old Roses team-mates, themselves in a period of transition, play New Zealand on Saturday and then hopefully Australia in Sunday’s final of the Nations Cup at the First Direct Arena in Leeds, before resuming training next week with the Rhinos ahead of the Super League season getting underway in February.

“The one thing with retiring from England, I wanted to make sure I didn’t cut things off completely by retiring from netball,” Mentor, who made her England debut as a 16-year-old in 2001, tells The Yorkshire Post.

“I wanted to continue playing domestically and it felt like the right time to come back here with the league trying to turn the game professional over the next couple of years; see what I can do to help, what advice I can give having played out in Australia for so long.

“The netball community has been so supportive throughout my career because I felt the love here and I felt the connection. Ever since making the announcement that I was coming here, the messages I’ve received have been wonderful.”

Leeds is a relatively fledgling programme - they are about to embark on their fourth season in Super League but still have no permanent home in the city - so it is quite a coup for them to have landed Mentor, even past her prime.

There were other suitors, mainly the London clubs, while the fact her partner lives in France was another issue to consider when choosing which club she would end her career with.

But the fact an old international adversary in Liana Leota of New Zealand is director of netball at Leeds, allied with it having the feel of a project to grow netball in the city and the county of Yorkshire, appealed to Mentor, regardless of her English south coast routes.

“I was sold after just five minutes of the conversation with Liana on what she wants to do,” says Mentor.

“I knew I wanted to come back to the English Super League, I just didn’t know where, but talking with her I loved her passion, what she wanted to do with this club and where she wants to take it. It aligned with my values – which is make sure you leave a place better than how you found it, making sure you leave a legacy for the next group – and what I want to achieve.

“Liana was a phenomenal athlete, her speed was incredible. I can’t believe she had kids and came back to play at an elite level, she’s such an inspiring athlete.

"But the thing for me is you see a lot of players go into coaching roles and they change who they are as a person, how they deliver and how they connect with a playing group, where as one thing I see with Liana is she’s stayed true to who she is all the way through and I really respect that.

“She has that holistic approach, making sure you are comfortable and happy as a person. You can obviously tell the passion she has for not only the sport but also her club, it just oozes through, for me that is showing her true character. And I’m happy to follow someone like that.

“I really liked what she wanted to do - just helping create that club profile and building it in Yorkshire and making sure the community base is there. You can’t have an elite level if you don’t have a strong foundation. There are some fantastic role models in this team and in the sport, and some inspiring stories as well.

“It’s making sure the community knows that, that they feel on board with that, feel a part of the journey with us.

“I’m coming to Leeds to create something that’s bigger than me and be part of what Liana is wanting to build with Leeds Rhinos.”

The domestic game in the UK that she returns to is much changed to the one she left when departing Bath in 2007, but it still has a long way to go to catch up to Australia and New Zealand, where the game is fully professional at the top level, in turn leading to the southern hemisphere’s dominance of international competition.

Aside from the Gold Coast in 2018 when the Roses finally bested the Australians, Mentor’s medal cupboard was full of bronze medals up until that silver in Cape Town last summer.

Coming home to play in Super League and help shape the transition towards professionalism that the governing body wants to introduce from 2025, is an exciting closing chapter to her storied career.

“When you have someone ahead of you, you can look to see the steps they have made, you can progress further and learn from it,” she says of her Australian counterparts.

“Australia loves their sport so the funding and the resources are always there, whereas in England you’re competing against so many other sports.

“We don’t want to compete with them, we want to ride along with them.

“I’m excited to see the impact that professionalism can have and where the opportunities to grow are and where we can take the sport.

“At the moment the league calendars collide, so you’ve got the best players out in Australia, but if we can grow the sport here and make it appealing for international players to come across, if they know it’s going to be an elite environment with those professional behaviours, it can only be good for everyone.”

“I won’t shy away from the fact that it will be very different to the Suncorp Super League. I know that the support for the officials is very different and they’re looking to develop that, because that can hold back some of the talent and playing opportunities, but I think at the end of the day if everyone is open to conversations and open to growth and taking the sport to the next level, it’s going to be an exciting time.

“I’m hoping I can come in and play freely. I know I will have to adapt and change to what I’ve been able to play like in Australia and New Zealand, but at the end of the day, I’m happy to meet those challenges. But I don’t want it to be easy, I want to grow and adapt.”

When she finally retires from playing netball competitively, what does the future hold?

Will she follow her old adversary turned new club leader, Leota, into coaching?

“My future will go wherever it takes me,” says an open-minded Mentor.

“I’ve always said it will be within netball. I love the grassroots and the foundation, getting people into the sport.

“Wherever it takes me I’ll go. Having that strong connection with France, maybe there’s a connection there, they were affiliated with World Netball last year, they’re looking to grow as a governing body.

“For me, it’s where can I have an impact making sure netball across the world is in a strong place.

“The more you do that, the more the sport’s going to be in a healthy position across the world.”

So for now there is excitement for Mentor after all she has given to her sport.

It is why she will watch on from the stands in Leeds this weekend, ruefully, but without regret.

“It was my time,” she says of the decision to retire from an international game in which made 175 appearance.

“The biggest thing in my decision was maybe I can go another four years but where does that put netball, and England Roses for the next World Cup and hopefully Commonwealth Games when you need defenders and goalkeepers playing and having that time against different players and opposition? It was important for the next generation that I stood aside. I didn’t want to be selfish, I want to grow the sport as well.

“Maybe I could have squeezed out another couple of years but that’s a selfish viewpoint, it was time to put team first and making sure Jess (Thirlby, Roses head coach) had that opportunity to grow the next generation.

“They’ve got some fantastic coaches. Netball, and the Roses, are in a good place.”

Thanks, in no small part, to Geva Mentor.

Mentor expresses concern over future of Commonwealth Games

As international netball lands in Leeds this weekend, Mentor sounded a warning over the sport’s international potential with the future of the Commonwealth Games in doubt.

Mentor has expressed her concerns about the growth of netball if a host for the 2026 Games is not found following Victoria’s withdrawal last summer on financial grounds.

This newspaper, along with Commonwealth Games medallists Alistair Brownlee and Tom Bosworth, believes Yorkshire and the North of England has the infrastructure already in place to ride to the rescue in 2026, if local authorities and governing bodies can get round a table to explore it.

Leeds is showing its ability to host top-class international sport this weekend with the final stages of netball’s Nations Cup involving England, Australia, New Zealand and Uganda.

And for the good of netball, which does not have the benefit of an Olympic Games to showcase it to a global audience, Mentor is urging someone to save the Commonwealths in 2026.

“The Commonwealth Games has really elevated our sport, and to come away from the Games in 2018 with the gold medal was huge for netball,” says the 39-year-old who will play for Leeds Rhinos in Netball Super League this Spring.

“To come away from that and build a platform was massive for us.

“The concern now is with the Commonwealth Games in jeopardy and there being no funding in place.

“It would be such a shame to lose it having been part of six, I can see the benefit it has not just for the athletes but for the community as well, the exposure for other sports and the connections you build through other sports.

“Just making sure netball still has that outlet, because it’s looking more and more challenging to make an Olympic campaign because we are a team sport with the financial restraints on that.

“The hardest thing for a bid from the North of England is the resources, but the fact you can bring not just venues and accommodation, but also job opportunities for the community plus that exposure for the different local athletes that come on board, the tourism that comes because of that.

“It’s a sport that’s not known around the world and that’s the influence you can have on the smaller nations who are picking up netball for the first time.

“If we can get into that American market and into that European market, then it’s going to be harder to shut out a sport that’s growing.”