Incredible story behind netball season saved from catastrophe

IT WAS the late-night Zoom call that saved the Super Netball season and avoided “catastrophic” financial implications for the sport.

The Melbourne Vixens and West Coast Fever will line up in the Super Netball grand final in Brisbane on Sunday.

It will be the first professional sport in Australia to complete an uncompromised season during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But months before the 60th and final game was set in stone, the season was on the brink as players and officials scrambled to ensure netball could survive the unique challenges of 2020.

Officials believed delaying the start of the season from May to August 1 would give them time to ride out the early confusion surrounding the pandemic. But with a second wave hitting Victoria and NSW and borders closing around the country, key stakeholders met deep into a Saturday night in July, thrashing out a deal that would send players to Queensland to save the season.

Super Netball chief executive Chris Symington and Australian Netball Players’ Association boss Kathryn Harby-Williams had already been involved in months of meetings with the game’s stakeholders, players and commercial partners.

“(Cancelling) would have been catastrophic, really,” Symington said of the financial implications had Super Netball not been able to meet its obligations to broadcasters, sponsors and commercial partners.

“That’s why everyone worked so hard to make sure that didn’t happen.”

Harby-Williams said there was early resolve from the playing group to make whatever sacrifices were necessary to ensure the season went ahead.

“There were a lot of lastminute decisions in terms of going into a hub – I think the Victorians had their bags packed for three days before they knew exactly where they were going – but their preparedness to do whatever it took was outstanding,” she said.

Going into a hub wasn’t the players’ preference but as July progressed it became inevitable.

Members of the Vixens and Collingwood Magpies, as well as Victorian umpires, were sent for COVID testing and placed in home isolation.

With the Victorians needing to quarantine for 14 days following any move interstate, Symington held almost daily Zoom meetings with up to 100 stakeholders, and Saturday, July 18, shaped as D-Day as officials met late into the night.