Clash over Fever’s salary cap penalty

SUNSHINE Coast Lightning coach Kylee Byrne has broken ranks with Netball Australia, claiming the penalty handed to the West Coast Fever for their historical salary cap breaches was not harsh enough.

The Fever were handed a 12-point penalty, as well as a $300,000 fine, after self-reporting significant cap breaches in the 2018 and 2019 seasons.

While the penalties are unprecedented in Australian netball, the points docked amounted to just three wins and the Fever’s comeback win over the Lightning on Saturday night wiped the slate clean just three weeks into the season.

New Netball Australia chair Marina Go last week said the Fever’s penalty was “appropriate” and it would not be uncomfortable for the sport if the club pushed into the finals this season.

But Byrne said harsh enough”.

“We hold our heads high as a sport, we’re proud of our moral compass and proud of the role that we play in communities and sport in Australia,” the Lightning coach said.

“Across the board in netball, because there’s not a lot of money around, you know what happens and where it’s spent.

“I think now that this playing group still have a real crack at finals, I still think it should have been harsher.”

Fever coach Stacey Marinkovich, though, said it was tough that the current playing group was paying for the sins of others.

“I think the hardest part is that it was for years retrospectively and the playing group that are around and the high performance group, none of us were a part of it and it’s completely out of our control,” Marinkovich said.

“We’re wearing the punishment handed out and we take that on as a club.

“We know that we have to do better as an organisation and we’ve certainly put processes in place to make sure that it never happens again.

“(For) the playing group, it hurts because it was out of our control and we’re the ones that have to step out on court with that penalty.” it was “not