Bayman slams ‘stupid’ format as record crowd watch opener
Despite defeated Loughborough Lightning head coach Sara Bayman claiming the majority of clubs were opposed to the introduction of an extra round of fixtures to the 2020 Superleague, a record crowd for yesterday’s Season Opener demonstrated the booming appetite for the sport.
Only time will tell whether the addition of a 19th round for the campaign curtain-raiser – all 10 sides playing on the same day, ties determined by teams’ final 2019 season placings, with first playing second, third versus fourth and so on, and points going towards the overall season tally – will have a pivotal impact come the end of the regular season in mid-June.
Bayman, who watched her side fall to a heavy 72-58 loss to Team Bath, believes it will. “It doesn’t make any sense, the teams that benefit from it will obviously be the teams who win today,” she said. “I hate the format, I think it’s stupid. For us to basically know we’ve got an uphill struggle because we’ve lost this game is tough.”
But for Superleague organisers, at least, that will be a matter for another day given yesterday’s success in Birmingham with a sold-out crowd of
Sirens. Surrey Storm and Celtic Dragons maintained the high-quality entertainment levels with a 44-43 victory for the former before Saracens Mavericks beat Severn Stars 70-49. Defending champions Manchester Thunder later beat Wasps Netball 62-55.
Bayman was among those who initially criticised the additional round of fixtures, which replaces the traditional Super Saturday format, where all 10 teams competed on a single day as part of the fixed season, labelling it “senseless” last August and suggesting that for teams, such as Lightning, who start slowly, it could be disadvantageous.
Unfortunately, Lightning stuck to their early-season habits and, while conceding the packed crowd was something that “we could only have dreamt about five years ago”, she said most clubs were against the changes.
“It’s easy to say I would have stood by it had we won,” she said. “No one really wanted this. We will play Bath three times this season and they were the only team we didn’t beat last season. We’re kind of punished for finishing top four by getting an extra round this year. We could have had it as one of the rounds of this season, we could have had it as a pre-season game. We didn’t have a say before it was decided. We were then asked about it and seven out of 10 teams didn’t want it. For me, in a democracy, seven out of 10 wins.”