Waroona’s Daniel Cools within reach of the pinnacle of netball after being named in Australian men’s squad

Waroona’s Daniel Cools is within reach of the pinnacle of male netball after being named in the Australian open men’s squad. Cools, who has played netball since 2013 and was the creator of the Waroona Recreation Centre’s mixed netball competition, earned his selection on the back of a successful Australian Men’s and Mixed Netball Association national championships. The 190cm defender played for WA’s West Coast Thunder in the tournament in May, where they placed third — their best finish since 2007. After the national championships, Cools was named in the 16-man Australian open men’s squad, which is set to tour New Zealand in October. But Cools has a nervous wait ahead, with the squad to be cut to 12 within the coming months. The Waroona star said he would be doing everything he could to one day wear the green and gold of Australia. “I am really excited and pretty motivated to push myself a little more to hopefully get a spot in that team come tour time,” Cools said. “My main goal has always been to win a nationals title with WA, but a massive personal goal behind that is to play for Australia. “I didn’t think I’d ever achieve that, and to be so close now is really exciting.” Despite the elation of his Australian selection, Cools was heartbroken to fall short with WA in the preliminary final on April 22, where they went down 54-42 against Victoria. But Cools said he had had time to reflect on the tournament since and was proud of what the side achieved. “Now I can appreciate it is one of our best nationals, but at the time I think as a team we had the realistic goal that we would be pretty disappointed if we didn’t make that grand final,” he said. “The last three years we have grown, and even in that tournament our best netball was in the top two in the competition. “Going away with an undermanned squad and with COVID and all the different challenges, we didn’t quite get there in the end. “During nationals I was disappointed, but looking back now at the week we had and the perseverance and grit we showed, I am proud we finished where we finished.” Cools is one of four WA male netball talents who were named as West Coast Fever training partners earlier in the year and he said the level of netball had helped him to grow as a player. “The Fever training environment is the highest quality we get as men,” he said. “It puts us up against some pretty good opposition on a weekly basis and gives us that motivation to push ourselves and probably sets us up quite nicely for nationals. “Coming against players like (Fever star Jamaican import) Jhaniele Fowler regularly — she is the best of the best — so it definitely puts us in good stead for our men’s games.”