Alliance trio nets spot in state series
TOWNSVILLE’S new era of netball is officially under way.
Townsville’s joint application with the Whitsundays and Cairns netball associations to enter the new Netball Queensland semi- professional Sapphire competition has been successful.
The team will be named the Northern Rays and is expected to play most home games out of Townsville, with other games hosted by Mackay and Cairns.
The team replaces the Townsville- based Magnetic North Steelcats as the region’s state- league netball outfit.
“Our biggest goal for this is to be able to keep players in the North,” Townsville City Netball president Marg Cedar said recently.
“If ( players) want to go any higher ( they) actually have to go to Brisbane. We want players to be able to work locally and study locally.”
The Steelcats narrowly missed out on playing in the semi- finals of this year’s Queensland State Netball League competition, but recorded impressive wins throughout the season.
Seven clubs will make up the new Sapphire Series, with all matches streamed.
Licences were awarded to clubs after a rigorous fourmonth application process to ensure they could meet the wide- ranging criteria to support the up- and- coming netball stars.
The player contracting period opens in December and closes at the end of January 2019.
Games in the Brisbane area will be played out of the soonto- be- completed $ 44 million Brisbane Arena.
The Sapphire Series clubs are the Northern Rays, Moreton Bay Thunder, Brisbane North Cougars ( partnering with Australian Catholic University), Carina Leagues Club Tigers ( Griffith University), Jets Netball ( USQ), Bond University Bull Sharks ( Bond University) and QUT Wildcats ( QUT). to be live-