Sport Spotlight: Leana de Bruin

After moving to New Zealand in 2001 from South Africa, Leana has become one of the country's most prominent netball stars. After seven years of playing for New Zealand she has established a strong reputation as one of the country's best.

She’s represented New Zealand nationally and is currently a member of the LG Northern Mystics (she’s a gun when it comes to playing Goal Keep and Goal Defence).

 

With the netball season just around the corner (the Mystics have their first game on April 6 - click here for more info) Leana has been busy training and preparing herself for the hectic year ahead. Not only is she a pro netballer, but she’s also a smart cookie, with a Bachelor of Communication Studies from Waikato University, majoring in Marketing. She’s also recently become the face of two fabulous New Zealand made products, Radiessence and Tall Bay designs. Phew!

 

Lots of determination. Never give up! If every day you try and try, that day that you give up, could have been the day you made it. You never know, so definitely keep trying.

 

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
At the moment I love kids. There are lots of them on my street and I’ll take them to the beach or to the pool. I love playing mum, but at the same time I also love being able to hand them back at the end of the day! I also enjoy spending time with friends and I love the beach.

 

1: That being abnormally tall doesn’t really matter (laughs)!

2: I would have liked to have grown up in the New Zealand system of netball. I was 23 when I first came here, and I’d picked up a lot of bad habits from back in South Africa. It was quite hard to get around that.

3: Who you are as a kid is not who you are as an adult. Go for whatever you want to achieve. At school I was always in the B teams – I started off in those B teams every single time! But eventually with a lot of hard work and perseverance I was always eventually able to work my way up into that top team (Ed's note: Making the grade for NZ's national team definitely rates as making the 'top team' in our books. High five for peseverance!)

I’m quite an outdoors person – and I normally think I’m wasting a brilliant day by sleeping in!

 

There is definitely heaps of talent here in New Zealand – there are so many great youngsters out there. And they really look after their young players which is great. It was a lot harder for me back in South Africa, I wasn’t really given much of a chance because they thought I was too young. I had to learn a lot of netball skills at the age of 24, where as the girls here get to learn everything at such an early age!

 

I feel like a New Zealand player. At first I didn’t actually think I was good enough to play for New Zealand, but once I adjusted to the lifestyle it was much easer.

 

Mum and Dad are really supportive. It costs a lot to play netball in South Africa and the level of competition is sad. I couldn’t do it as a job over there. Mum’s been to most of my games and Dad’s way of supporting me is to say ‘you can’t do that’ – just so I would work harder. I don’t think I would have been able to it without Mum and Dad.

 

I wouldn’t say there is a lot of pressure – I just want to be a good example for young people. As long as they can learn something from me that’s cool.

What are your beauty tips?
I like to be natural and not over do things. I guess my key tip is everything in moderation! I also love Radiessence foundation. It has a waterproof base which is great for when I’m playing. It’s so easy to apply. Just two minutes and I’m out of here. It’s also a New Zealand based product which I love (Leana is also the gorgeous face behind Radiessence – check out their website here).

 

I met my husband here in 2002 – he’s a kiwi. I guess he was a bit of a draw card!