Anna Stanley

Background

The daughter of a former New Zealand player, Anna hadn’t even played senior provincial netball when she was whisked off for her international debut against Jamaica in 1994.

Career

Her roller-coaster career dipped to its lowest point when sidelined by selectors for 18 months, but she was recalled again in 2002. Stanley is renowned in netball circles as an outstanding athlete as well as her speed through court and trademark bullet pass. Stanley represented Otago, Canterbury and Auckland in New Zealand"s top Netball league.

In 2005, after several months of rehabilitation, she returned to the court for the Auckland Diamonds.

Only a few weeks into the 2006 National Bank Cup season, she announced that she was pregnant and would be retiring from netball to concentrate on her family life, thus ending a fluctuating but successful career on the court. Stanley was named in the Waikato-Bay of Plenty Magic squad in New Zealand"s top netball league in 2007, however she did not play this season for the team in the league.

Instead Stanley devoted time to motherhood, and in 2007 became an Ambassador for Rett New Zealand, an organisation to assist children and their families that suffer from Rett syndrome. In 2008 with the start of the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Championship, Stanley has been a television presenter and netball commentator with Sky Sports.

She also co-hosts the weekly netball magazine style show On Court with Kathryn Harby-Williams and Tania Dalton.

She finished her international career with 91 caps. Stanley is married to current medical surgeon and former Auckland and All Black rugby union player, Jeremy Stanley.

Achievements

• She led the Silver Ferns to a drought-breaking series win over Australia (the first since 1989) in the winter of 2004, and played for the Auckland Diamonds in the National Bank Cup national league in 2004 and 2005. In 2004 she suffered a knee injury during the Silver Ferns" clean sweep series win over arch-rivals Australia. She returned to the Silver Ferns in October of that year, and was a member of the Commonwealth Games gold medal–winning team of March 2006. She was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to netball in the 2004 New Year Honours.