Nat von Bertouch reflects on legacy

By Linda Pearce

Coaching renowned Adelaide club Contax’s sub-primary team that includes her daughters Maddie and Milla Bode has helped Natalie von Bertouch gain a clearer perspective on her own netball achievements.

As an unflappable, indefatigable 76-Test midcourter from 2004-2012.

As a World Cup-winning captain and dual world champion.

As, now, one of the 2024 Inductees into the Netball Australia Hall of Fame.

But just, primarily, through representing her country, for von Bertouch, simply being selected might count as the greatest accomplishment of all.

“Now I have daughters that play netball and I see how many young girls play netball, it's really reinforced to me how incredible it was to play for the Diamonds,'' von Bertouch says.

“Just the enormity of how amazing it is even to make a team, then to be able to be captain, and how grateful I am to be one of very few people among the many that played netball in Australia over that period of time to be honoured this way.’’

The 2007 and 2011 World Cup victories are obvious highlights, yet when von Bertouch reflects on her career it is far less about medals and silverware than connections, challenges, friendships and experiences alongside the history piece that comes with being among the “Sisters in Arms”.

Still, both triumphs were thrilling for different reasons. The double-overtime thriller against New Zealand in Singapore, von Bertouch having replaced the injured Sharelle McMahon as captain, was the perfect tonic after the shattering low of the Delhi Commonwealth Games loss to the Silver Ferns a year earlier.

“But also 2007, playing alongside my sister, that doesn’t happen very often, so both World Cups have very special places in my heart for different reasons.’’

Indeed, the story begins on a tennis court in suburban Adelaide, the training ground for netty-mad Laura, and Nat, two years younger.

Laura had the scrapbooks and dreams; Nat had an example and leader and, back then at least, a willingness to do as she was told.

“I remember hours and hours of passing, playing netball games with each other, and I always credit her with teaching me to catch, because she used to pelt the ball at me and that’s the way I learnt to catch, right? If I missed it, I got a blood nose!’’

The siblings were competitive but mutually supportive, too; centre Nat with more natural endurance; the small but speedy Laura a specialist wing attack.

“We were quite lucky we weren’t actually competing for the same position for SA, which was probably lucky for our parents, too,’’ laughs Nat.

"For me that moment when we both got picked in the Aussie team and then be both on the court when we won the game (in Auckland in 2007) was something we won’t ever forget.’’

One idol growing up was Contax star, the late Karen Schulz. A little later, eventual teammates Bec Larkin (nee Sanders) and Peta Scholz (nee Squire) were the two Thunderbirds she most wanted to be.

Key coaching influences included Marg Angove (“as a junior she was scary, but now I think ‘God, why was I scared of her? She’s so nice!’’’) and Norma Plummer at the AIS and for the Diamonds, as both drove standards that allowed the determined youngster to thrive.

Her toughest opponents were Temepara George and Laura Langman. Favourites to play with; Mo’onia Gerrard and sister Laura, that almost telepathic understanding having been honed through all those years on the backyard court.

Just one missing piece, then: Commonwealth Games gold, after finals losses in Melbourne in 2006 and Delhi in 2010. Only recently has von Bertouch come to appreciate the significance of silver.

“For a long time it was like ‘Wow we failed, we didn’t win gold’,’’ she says.

“But from anyone else’s perspective, winning two silver medals is really an incredible achievement.

“So over time I’ve been able to soften a little bit and share that I did win two silver medals, but they are always a bit tainted in my memory, particularly that Delhi one. That was probably the hardest period of time in netball in my life, after that.’’

The finish, though, was quite perfect. Eventually. 

Von Bertouch recalls turning up for the T-birds’ first pre-season session of 2013 and, inexplicably, not wanting to be there. 

She was barely 30, but she knew she was done.

“I’d always loved training, but it became hard. And I was like ‘Oh, this is weird! Why? Why is this now hard all of a sudden?’ And then we played our first match of the season and I just felt like I didn’t have my killer instinct. I felt like I’d lost that.

“So I was like ‘OK, well, I’ve got a season to play and what am I going to do, because I’ve got to re-find some motivation? I’ve got a season to play and that probably is going to be my last, and what do I want to focus on?’.’’

The old goals of being fitter, stronger, better than previously had dissipated, so von Bertouch instead turned her attention to mentoring and developing her natural successor in the T-birds’ midcourt: a talented teen called Maddy Proud.

Proud didn't know. No-one at the club did. But, crisis averted, the captain was also clear it was “time to chase other dreams”, personally and professionally.

Only partner Jace and her family knew in advance that the Grand Final would be von Bertouch’s swansong after 173 games in 13 seasons, for the faithful servant was determined not to detract from the team’s preparation or make any of it about herself.

It was a sleepless night, though. As the fitness fanatic and qualified dietician willed away the awful prospect of overtime, she told herself that she had another four 15-minute quarters left, however, weary she felt.

“So I got out on court and had, for me, the fairytale finish of winning - at home,’’ says von Bertouch, acknowledging that she was quite young to retire. 

Yet - now 41 and a mum-of-three running her own leadership, culture, wellbeing and consultancy for schools and corporates - never tempted to return.

Asked to describe herself as a player, the ever-humble von Bertouch initially says: “Hard-working”. Then "good skills, low turnover rate. A defensive centre court’’.

Demeanour-wise: “Pretty calm and controlled most of the time and as a captain that’s a pretty important trait, and something that I try to instil in my children as well. But it’s not working yet!’’

She is often told that Laura’s daughter Alice, 11, plays just like Auntie Nat did. As for her own daughters, Milla, 7, recently made her debut for Contax, alongside sister Maddie, 9.

“I’m coaching them at the moment which is interesting. They hate me being their coach and it’s really challenging at times, actually, to watch and not pick on them, but I love it, because they’re inspired by what we’re doing at training, they come home and want to repeat the drills together.

“And I guess I go ‘Oh gosh, this feels familiar, and what me and my sister used to do’.’’

So history repeats. Just as Nat von Bertouch is aware that in all of the Diamonds’ history, George Horjus is the latest of just 192 ever to represent Australia.

“The odds are tiny to get to the Diamonds, so for me I just think ‘Wow, that period in my life was incredible’,'' she says.

"The achievement’s not lost on me, and what an honour it is to be in the Hall of Fame.’’