Excited young fans lined up to meet their netball heroes at Mount Maunganui New World this week.

Bay of Plenty/Waikato Magic players Irene Van Dyke and Julianna Naoupu took time out from their training schedules to meet with young fans on Wednesday afternoon.

Irene Van Dyk, Atareta Mohi, 10, Aquila Atkinson, 9, and Julianna Naoupu.

Irene says the team received 'unbelievable” support from their local fans, despite its rocky start to the season.

After four straight loses at the beginning of the ANZ Championship, the Magic are currently sitting fifth on the table ahead of their next match against Southern Steel in Hamilton on Queens Birthday Monday.

'It is not the ideal start and we're still not placed very well on the table.

'It's always awful to rely on other teams to knock each other out.

'But it seems like we start to hit our strengths and it goes a little bit better, hopefully we can finish with a big bang.”

Irene is looking forward to playing at home on Sunday, June 10.

'It's always nice to play at home, we've had a lot of away games.

'The nice thing in Tauranga is we train where we play so it really feels like home.”

She is enjoying training and playing at Tauranga's TECT Arena which she says is 'beautiful, absolutely gorgeous and the crowd is really close.”

Irene says it was great meeting their enthusiastic young fans at New World.

'It's nice that people are hanging out here and talking to us.”

Atareta Mohi, 10, was extremely excited to meet the players.

'They inspire me, I want to play netball all the time.”

Aquila Atkinson, 9, says she watches their games on television with her mother and tries to learn their moves.

'But not the lift, we're too big.”

Olive Abrahams was excited to get her netball signed.

Madelaine and Olive Abrahams felt shy around the Magic players but soon perked up for a photo.

Photos by Savannah Lee.