When granted the first interview with the new Diamonds mentor between the two televised national league matches last Saturday, greats of the game-turned commentators Liz Ellis and Cath Cox looked as though they had been blindsided.

It seems safe to assume that Simone McKinnis was their preferred candidate and every chance that she was to be presented for the interview given she was working with her Melbourne Vixens team courtside at that very moment.

The way the questioning proceeded it looked as though just about every other short-listed applicant was higher on the Cox-Ellis pecking order than the final choice.

The cynical view might be that they were as much miffed about not having the influence on the game they thought they had as about Marinkovich getting the call-up.

First up they gave the opportunity to Marinkovich to dwell on her suggested lack of experience as a player and a scarcity of success as both a player and coach.

Then she was essentially asked to defend the decision the panel made to appoint her given the resumés of the other contenders including McKinnis and Julie Fitzgerald.

Marinkovich managed the onslaught well, maintaining her composure and responding in a measured manner.

But that wasn't it for the former Diamonds captain Ellis who was back on the box a day later in an interview with Mark Taylor re-hashing all the same stuff.

And then again twice over the past week in newspaper columns. On Friday in The Age the barrage approach was justified by a claim that Marinkovich "wanted those hard questions asked so that she could lean into them."

I had not heard of the new Diamonds head coach until I had the opportunity to watch more top level netball.

But she clearly had impressed the interview panel. Despite dipping out well and truly on the Cox-Ellis key criteria of playing at the highest possible level or enjoying significant coaching success, Marinkovich must have shown other qualities.

Given the impressive credentials of her fellow contenders for the role, the appointment panel must have picked up on attributes that so emphatically neutralised those suggested shortcomings.

Asking those who might know provides some clues as to how Marinkovich has leap-frogged others following the more traditional path.

It's been suggested that the immediate past national coach Lisa Alexander may have had issues dealing with the strong personalities of some players in her charge. There was a perception that she was inclined to provide preferential treatment to some players.

These are considered to be areas that Marinkovich would manage more successfully.

It may well be that her skills and personality will be better suited to the task of managing expectations and progress within what is going to be a transitioning national squad with a big cohort of emerging players.

By contrast there will be the challenge of managing the twilight of the career of the current national captain Caitlin Bassett.

If indeed there is a difference worth exploring, Marinkovich is considered to have been the superior candidate in terms of high performance, as distinct from coaching, expertise.

She is apparently comfortable around the modern jargon of high performance and accountability and gets "management speak".

The process that saw Marinkovich rise to the top of the tree is said to have had a heavy emphasis on personality testing. It required multiple presentations. We can only assume that given it knew it was going to face some considerable push-back, the panel would have searched long and hard yet presumably could not find any chinks in her armour.

Ellis and Cox thought it was time for a former international player to take the reins but the panel has clearly had different ideas.

It's been a bit of a shock to the Australian netball family that continued international success is far from assured, but as someone close to the action commented "if they keep doing the same things they are going to keep getting the same outcomes."