Bye bye Aussies, NNZ happy to be going its own way

"It's about that flair and owning the product that we're putting out on court; we haven't had that for a while." NNZ chief executive Jennie Wyllie

There was quite some chestbeating at the launch of Netball New Zealand’s (NNZ) new national premiership.

Gone are the five Australian franchise partners that made up the old trans-tasman league and good riddance too, by the sound of it.

In truth, New Zealand’s sides were the weak link in that old competition. They attracted useful sponsorship dollars and had good broadcast support, but the performance of the five teams was rarely up to it.

Now the two nations are back to going it alone. In New Zealand that means the addition of a sixth side the Northern Stars - and bullish talk that this competition will be vastly superior to the transtasman one of the last nine years.

‘‘For all of us it absolutely is [better]. It’s about that flair and owning the product that we’re putting out on court; we’re quite excited, we haven’t had that for a while,’’ NNZ chief executive Jennie Wyllie said.

‘‘To get back to that real Kiwi style, that little bit of mongrel, the aerial [skills] and the flair, because that’s what I grew up loving about netball.’’

There’s a belief that because Australia’s sides were often so much better, the New Zealand ones became pale imitations of their trans-tasman rivals and lost their own distinct style.

The main issue with this new premiership is that it pays its way and continues to give this country’s elite players a springboard onto the international stage.

‘‘We’ve got a commitment for a period of time from our broadcast [partner] and our suite of [sponsorship] partners,’’ said Wyllie.

For this year? Three years? Ten years?

‘‘We’re talking a long-term commitment. So we’ve got a model and our partners are committed to it as well; Sky and ANZ are fully engaged.

‘‘I think we’ll have flexibility to introduce new concepts and put innovation into the game. I think we’ll be a little more agile in our ability to flick the switch on things as we choose to.’’

But it’s the netball the fans will be interested in.

Just as there’s an argument that the New Zealand sides became inferior clones of the Australian ones, there’s another to say the drive to emulate the Aussies raised some historically low standards.

Eventually dumbing down the competition and introducing conferences meant New Zealand teams only had to win three or four games a season to make the playoffs.

That was a far cry from 2012 when the Waikato-bay of Plenty won the whole thing. Looking back now, it was an amazing achievement, as were their perennial appearances in the playoffs under coach Noeline Taurua and star players Irene van Dyk, Laura Langman and Casey Kopua.

Only captain Kopua remains and she’s very conscious that performance levels at the Magic can’t be allowed to drop. ‘‘With Magic, I don’t care who you’re playing, we play at a high level,’’ Kopua said.

She also wonders if going back to playing a purely domestic competition could send the Silver Ferns backwards.

‘‘I really hope that it doesn’t. I really hope that we go back to being ourselves,’’ said Kopua.

‘‘Obviously [the Australian franchises] were winning all the time, so you’re going to change [to their style] and wonder what else can you do? But this [new] competition is here now and it might give us a bit more confidence.

‘‘I don’t know, it’ll be interesting.’’