Net profit or net loss?
Netball’s premier competition is into season eight, but the Silver Ferns’ disappointing World Cup has raised questions about whether it is working effectively. Brendon Egan reports.
The Silver Ferns risk falling further behind Australia and England unless drastic changes are made to the country’s flagship domestic competition.
That is the stern warning from former national coach and radio commentator Yvonne Willering, who has grave concerns about the ANZ Premiership.
The eighth edition of New Zealand’s elite netball league begins today and Willering is among those calling for an overhaul of the competition structure.
She argues the premiership is failing to adequately prepare aspiring Silver Ferns for international netball. The 15-round competition had become stale, lacked intensity and was characterised by too many basic errors.
Eight years since going it alone after the trans-Tasman netball league split, the ANZ Premiership is at tipping point.
Angst about whether the competition was meeting its key objectives was only heightened after last year’s World Cup. The Dame Noeline Taurua-coached Ferns slumped to their worst finish in the 16-edition history of the event, placing fourth and for the first time failing to medal.
Chance to reassess
With Netball New Zealand (NNZ) in the final year of its broadcast deal with Sky and weighing its options for 2025 and beyond, the time had come to cast a critical eye over the competition, Willering said.
“We’ve said it and we’ll continue to say it – that, no, it doesn’t [prepare the country’s best netballers for international netball].
“Obviously it isn’t the next stage for the Silver Ferns because how often has it been said, and Noels [Taurua] has said that as well, there’s still development work being done at Silver Ferns level.”
The 2024 premiership will operate as the last seven have, with each side playing the others three times during round play (outside Covid cancellations from 2020-22).
Traditional netball rules will continue to be used, unlike in Australia where Super Netball is played with the two-point ‘Super Shot’ in the last five minutes of each quarter.
NNZ chief executive Jennie Wyllie said the premiership was reviewed at the end of every season. Nothing was off the table for future iterations of the competition, with NNZ operating with a blank canvas and open to all suggestions.
Broadcast deal to consider
With the broadcast deal with Sky up for renewal after this season, Wyllie said it was an opportune time to take a detailed look under the hood at the premiership.
Sky has had the broadcast rights to netball since 2011, though the Saturday game of each round this year will also be shown on free-to-air TVNZ.
“As in any business cycle, any product, you’ve got to go through that conversation around what needs to be true for the next turn of the wheel. That’s something we’re in discussions with currently,” Wyllie said.
Despite the Ferns’ poor World Cup showing, which followed a bronze-medal finish at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, Wyllie believed the premiership was largely meeting its objectives.
“Yes, the game of netball has changed and grown on a global stage and we’ve had some disappointing results recently, but I think with our new leadership model [with Taurua reappointed as head coach] and way of thinking, we’re a couple of clicks off the pace. We don’t under-estimate the need to keep challenging ourselves.”
Competition length concerns
Willering has been a vocal in her view that 15 rounds is far too long. Teams know they can make the top three finals with five or six losses and don’t have to be at their best for every match.
Last year, the premiership did have its closest season of results. Nineteen of the 47 matches (40%) were decided by five goals or fewer and the top three finalists were found only in the last round.
Former Mystics head coach Helene
Wilson, who guided the side to the 2021 title, is well placed to comment. After the 2022 season, Wilson stepped away from the Mystics to join High Performance Sport New Zealand as its manager of women in high performance sport programme.
“My question to Netball New Zealand and to the people who make the decisions [around the ANZ Premiership], who are all those diverse people in the room that know how to look from different lenses, so the product we see on the day is a product that engages the purist, engages the fans, engages the ones who just want to see a close game, and invites new fans to engage in netball for different reasons.
“We’ve got to think a bit wider than we traditionally have in netball.”
Like Willering, Wilson was eager to see refinements to the competition.
‘Super Shot’ conundrum
Both Wilson and Willering described themselves as netball traditionalists, but they have done a U-turn on the
‘Super Shot’ and believe it would be a welcome addition.
Long-serving Tactix coach Marianne Delaney-Hoshek said last year that she was in favour of the two-point shot, sayingitwouldopenuphowthesportwas played at the elite level.
Wilson believed nothing should be offlimits, even raising the possibility whether the New Zealand men’s side, who she coaches, could be included in a revised premiership.
When the Silver Ferns triumphed at the 2019 World Cup, defender Katrina Rore said if they had not played the men in the buildup they would not have won the title. The men’s side had been invaluable at preparing the women for the stronger, taller and faster athletes they faced in Liverpool.
“I think parts of it are [working] and parts of it we can be more innovative around how we can create new performance-learning opportunities within the ANZ for when athletes transition to the Silver Ferns,” Wilson said. “If you keep doing the same thing you’ve always done you’ll get the same result.”
Australian involvement needed
Willering and Wilson agreed a trans-Tasman crossover component was sorely required.
NNZ’s head of commercial, David Cooper, last year ruled out any trans-Tasman netball league reunion in the future. The two countries’ separate broadcasting, commercial deals and player pathways made that virtually impossible.
Willering had several gripes with the premiership. She was uninspired by the standard of imports, with some worse than New Zealand players on the bench and not adding much.
Teams are allowed one overseas player and some do not even bother contracting one, focusing on local talent.
Imports not adding much
It was a far cry from some of the topline imports in the former trans-Tasman league, when overseas stars like Jhaniele Fowler (Jamaica), Mwai Kumwenda (Malawi), Serena Guthrie and Jo Harten (both England) and Australian duo Caitlin Thwaites and Megan Dehn brought significant value to the Kiwi teams.
The skill level on display, high turnover rate and fundamental mistakes committed in many games made Willering’s blood boil.
“I don’t believe that even in ANZ there’s enough work done on individual skills, where we’re actually doing skill-related drills and then leading into court play. “I think the focus is getting more and more into great court play. Players are coming out and saying ‘We just want to play’.” Wilson described the relationship between Silver Ferns management and the premiership teams and coaches as positive.
Ensuring there was strong interaction and support between them was important. They both needed to keep striving for excellence and not get complacent. Holding each other to account was crucial to lifting the overall standard, Wilson said.