Geva Mentor


Geva Kate Mentor, CBE is an English International netball player. Mentor was selected for the England national team in 2000, debuting the following year against New Zealand, at age 16. She currently plays for the Collingwood Magpies in the Australian Super Netball league, and prior to that was a two-time premiership captain at the Sunshine Coast Lightning.

Career

International

Mentor has received a silver medal at the 2005 World Youth Netball Championships in Miami, Florida, two bronze medals at the 2006 and 2010 Commonwealth Games, and one gold medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. She has played in Five CWG: 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018 plus five netball World Championships, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019 winning three more Bronze medals. In December 2014 in Liverpool, Mentor gained her 100th cap for England Netball playing against Wales. Mentor is a key defensive player for the Roses and has just gained her 146th cap playing Goal Keeper in Liverpool for the national team 2019 Netball World Cup.

ANZ Championship

As of 2007 Mentor played with the Surrey Storm in the Netball Superleague, after winning two Superleague premierships with Team Bath. In 2008, she signed up to play in the Australasian ANZ Championship with the Adelaide Thunderbirds. Mentor played three seasons with the Thunderbirds, and was a member of their 2010 championship-winning team. During the 2010 and 2011 season, she signed with the Melbourne Vixens following changes to player eligibility rules. Mentor was dropped by England for the next 18 months due to England Netball's new policy of limiting selection to domestic-based players. The policy, an attempt to improve the standard of domestic netball, stated England Netball were not prepared to accommodate athletes plying their trade in overseas leagues and consequently disqualified Mentor from playing for England. She was considered ineligible for the England national team for that entire year, including the 2011 Netball World Championships in Singapore, although this ineligibility was later overturned via a compromise agreement between the players and the management team allowing Mentor to play for England in the World Championships.
In 2014 Mentor played her fourth season with Melbourne Vixens as their number 1 Goal Keeper. The Vixens went on to win the Grand Final in July: becoming ANZ Champions for the second time in their history. The following year her name was submitted by INF in the global Sports Accord Awards, in the Women's Sports category, where she made the top four and was invited to Sochi, Russia to receive the award. It was a busy year with another ANZ season at the Melbourne Vixens, followed by the Netball World Cup, hosted in Australia in August where she captained the English side to a Bronze medal.

Lightning and Magpies in Super Netball

Following her fifth season with the Vixens in 2016, the ANZ Championships was disbanded and the Suncorp Super Netball was established. With three new teams entering the new league, she relocated to the Sunshine Coast, where she captained the new Sunshine Coast Lightning netball team to a title in the inaugural year of the competition. Mentor was named the Player of the Year for the 2017 Suncorp Super Netball season as well as being named best goalkeeper in the team of the year at the same awards. Mentor repeated her success in the following season with a further selection on the 2018 team of the year as well as another championship with the Lightning.
On 7 September 2018, Mentor signed a two-year deal with the Melbourne-based Collingwood Magpies. She was named co-captain of the team ahead of the 2019 season, alongside existing captain Madi Robinson.

Super Netball statistics

! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 2017
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 2018
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 2019
! colspan=2| Career
! 0/0
! 0
! 103
! 0
! 0
! 112
! 303
! 700
! 20
! 46

Personal honours

Mentor was awarded an order of the British empire in the 2019 New Year honours list "for services to netball".