By Damien Stannard
Sparkling new Diamond Ruby Bakewell-Doran has lauded the netball family for hauling her back to the game she once hated.
Bakewell-Doran’s emergence has been a feature of the Queensland Firebirds’ rise from COVID-19 hub battlers to serious finals contenders in 2022.
Athleticism, timing and that brilliant smile have been her trademarks in the purple dress. Those assets were buried beneath layers of resentment when, as a 16-year-old, she ruptured her anterior cruciate ligament and dislocated a kneecap in a collision.
The defender spent three years out of the game, only reluctantly returning to the Sapphire Series via the ACU Brisbane North Cougars after persistent badgering from Queensland netball icon and former Australia representative Liz White OAM.
“I was completely removed. I hated netball at the time because I hadn’t been in the pathway that long, (the injury) isolated me and I fell off the planet,” said Bakewell-Doran who also credits her mum Megan for dragging her to physiotherapy and Pilates sessions during her rehabilitation.
“The support around the pathway now is so much better.
“When I came back I loved it. I started to make some of my closest friends in netball.”
Thriving
The former Novocastrian – Bakewell-Doran first showed an aptitude for the game with the Newcastle Netball Association – made her comeback in time to play at the under-19 national championships in Adelaide.
She won titles with the Cougars in 2020 and 2021, but it was her Firebirds cameo late in the 2021 season that enticed Queensland to upgrade her from training partner to a fulltime contract.
Playing in her third game, in Round 14, Bakewell-Doran grabbed three intercepts, including a matchwinner, in an injury-depleted Firebirds defence line to fend off the Melbourne Vixens in a thrilling win.
“That was my breakthrough,” she said.
The 23-year-old has continued to sharpen her game, mostly due to her daily training combat against Gretel Bueta.
They are good mates, only you would not know it based on the feisty match play duels between the ambitious defender and Diamonds goaler Bueta.
“She’s always in my corner,” Bakewell-Doran said. “She’s shaped me, and I love that dynamic.”
Next steps
Bakewell-Doran’s elevation to the Diamonds squad after just 15 games for the Firebirds was a recognition of her consistent output against a variety of opponents.
“Ruby has been a consistent ball getter across the Suncorp Super Netball competition,” Australia coach Stacey Marinkovich said. “We have now had time to see her against multiple opposition and she has been able to hold the standard she brought early in the season.”
The next step in Bakewell-Doran’s development is to blend her natural hunting instincts with the tough, one-on-one marking that characterises the best defenders.
She is fortunate in that aspect to have in the Firebirds camp assistant coach and former Diamonds captain Clare Ferguson whose selflessness was her brand over a decade in the national league.
“You can’t just be a floater,” Bakewell-Doran said.
While the thought of playing netball professionally is appealing, the Firebird values her other career as a writer for franchise marketing firm The Marketing Lab.
It gives her an outlet from elite netball’s pressures and a reminder of how fortunate she is “to be part of a team full of your best mates and get paid for it.
“I’d love to get to a stage where I’m 100 per cent netball,” she said. “But having this balance gives perspective.
“Having that perspective makes me even more grateful.”
