Community

An important role for Netball South is to support the building of capability of our netball centres.

At the beginning of 2022 we worked proactively with centres finalising support plans to determine and meet their local priorities. The one-page plans provided key focuses for our community lead staff in umpiring, coach, participation, NetballSmart and pathways, enabling them to support the centres in these areas. This is a great example of truly embedding Poipoia into our Zone.

There were a few curve balls thrown in with COVID raring its head again at the start of the year, initially impacting momentum. When a degree of normality returned we did our best to support our centres to complete their priorities. A lot of learnings were taken from the process in 2022 with improvements being made going forward.

During the season, our community team ploughed into work, with player, coach, NetballSmart and participation opportunities championed throughout the centres.

Our netball festivals were a great success in 2022 with the highest involvement of teams across all three festivals since they changed to participation events. We had 85 teams in Southland, 71 in Otago and 80 in Central Lakes. The festivals are great opportunities for children to participate in netball and have a wonderful day making memories. In all of our local events and tournaments we embedded NetballSmart, umpiring, coach and player support. This gave us a greater connection across the whole netball system with our community to help support the capability of the volunteers.

The Netball South team conducted thorough data analysis of activity across the zone for the year at the end of the season. This provided valuable insight to form discussions with our centres during the planning stages and in-depth analysis of the areas to direct our support and reset priorities as a zone for 2023.

The Ascot Park Hotel Southern Steel started their “Real Steel Southern Roadie” at the end of 2022 visiting Queenstown, Wanaka and Cromwell. The local centres supported these events with over 250 children connecting with the Steel players. A big thank you to Golden Homes Central Lakes for sponsoring these events and making it all possible.

Congratulations to all our centres for delivering excellent netball opportunities in 2022 during another challenging year. We acknowledge all of the hard-working volunteers and staff who continue to support and grow the game in the South. We are committed to partnering with our centres to build the capability of volunteers and staff to keep providing quality experiences across our zone and look forward to working even closer in 2023.

Coach Development

Coach development in 2022 focused on the newly created centre plans with each document highlighting what each was looking to provide for its coaches. As this was a new initiative for both the centres and Netball South, many lessons were learnt on both sides over the course of the year and we are well placed for 2023.

Highlights included growth in the type of coach development offered and a small shift into local delivery. 70 coach workshops were delivered across the Zone from FutureFERNS right through to Community Coach Award Level 2. There was a broader focus on non-framework workshops, with an across the Zone delivery of Contemporary Constraints Coaching methods by Nic Kelly, one of New Zealand’s leading experts in this field. This challenged and excited coaches throughout the zone.

On top of workshop delivery, there was more sideline support for coaches at tournaments and zone- related activities, where coach support was layered into events. More coaches took up the opportunity to have formal and informal coach observations with verbal and written feedback.

At the end of the season Netball South undertook a comprehensive coach survey which provided some statically valid and valuable feedback. One of the most striking statistics gathered was that 64% of adult team coaches had experienced a minimum of three coach development opportunities and all of them had attended both a physical workshop and a zoom workshop in the last three years.

Umpires And Bench Officials

Netball South showed good support for umpires and bench officials across all levels of the game with opportunities and development. With the introduction of the Sport Tutor and the NNZ catalogue available for education, learning and qualifications all combined online, it was the place to gain a NNZ Umpire Centre theory qualification plus learning benefits of rule knowledge.

Recommended by the zone as a priority for centres in 2022 was encouraging players and new umpire members to go online and attempt this module and test – most importantly to benefit rule knowledge and umpire participation. Results showed an excellent response from some centres which achieved a high number of successes in their participation.

Dunedin Centre was courageous and are to be congratulated in making it compulsory for players through several grades within their competition to achieve this prior to taking the court in the 2022 season. A total of approximately 800 members registered for this paper with approximately 750 gaining an Umpire Centre theory pass. There were also smaller centres achieving very good numbers too.

A high number of umpires achieved excellent pass results across the NNZ theory exams - Zone and NZ levels – thanks to the experienced tutors preparing and assisting umpires gaining these higher qualifications.

Although recovering from the major Covid interruptions of 2020/21, there were still periods of wellbeing effects among our umpires and coach assessors in 2022, stretching ground support.

South Zone tournaments provided many young umpires opportunities to gain experience at various levels throughout the Future Ferns programme and various age group teams specific events of participation.

One new NZC Award, one NZC Endorsement, eight new Zone Award Q and two Zone E were achieved – a fabulous result.

The Celebration Box U18 NZ Championships in Christchurch provided an opportunity to align an umpire with acceptable requirements to the six teams representing our zone. Angela McDonald – Central Lakes; Maia Cavanagh – Dunedin Centre; Shannon Michelle – Invercargill; Gabby Trotter – North Otago; Alannah Robinson – Southland Country; Keyle Brown –Whakatipu; Bryn Boyes – Marlborough.

Congratulations to Alannah Robinson who was appointed to officiate the final and then to the NZ Open Championships in Palmerston North. Alannah’s achievements have been recognised with the Louise Smith Talented Umpire Award.

Our high performance umpires Kristie Simpson and Sasha McLeod were members of the national squad. This talented pair represented the South strongly at a range of international and national fixtures.

Kristie Simpson - an incredible milestone achieved umpiring a record 120 national league matches after taking charge of the Magic v Steel game in May 2022. Truly an outstanding achievement. Kristie was also awarded ANZ Premiership Umpire of the Year 2022 for a second consecutive season. Kristie has been awarded the Colleen Bond Umpire of the Year Award. Congratulations Kristie – we are all very proud of your magnificent achievements.

Kristie was appointed to the following international events: Cadbury Series – Silver Ferns, NZA Team, NZ Men, NZ Mixed Men in Auckland. England Vitality Roses v Australia in Newcastle, Sydney and Brisbane.

Sasha McLeod - gained a World Netball appointment to umpire at the Oceania World Cup netball qualifiers held in Fiji. Sasha umpired at the 2022 Fast 5 (men’s section) in Christchurch, earning appointment to the final between the NZ Men v Australia Men. Well done Sasha.

With an emphasis on umpires locally officiating in their own centre competitions, many gained opportunities at a range of tournaments, including the Synergy Hair Netball League, U18’s, Otago and Southland Secondary School Championship in Invercargill and a tournament for Year 9 and 10 teams from across the zone held over two days in Dunedin. Several young umpires performed with outstanding skill to gain recognition with a finals appointment.

Boding well for the future, secondary school student umpires impressed with several gaining Zone and NZC Qualifying Awards. Committed to ensuring our emerging talent continues to thrive, netball in Southland and Otago benefits from a dedicated contingent of umpire coaches/coach assessors and coach developers who have had a slightly interrupted introduction. Much focus will continue identifying future coach developers to enable umpire coaches and assessors to extend greater support and development to our officials.

Although 2020 started a changed way of learning, 2022 has given everyone the opportunity to consolidate innovative ways of learning through online zooms for coach/coach assessor, proving to be a very effective way of delivery.

The hero of umpire development was the exemplary work done locally at the centres. It was not easy getting umpire coach assessors into games to support umpires in Alert Level 2 conditions for some centres, making the gains in qualifications achieved by many umpires exceptional given the impact of COVID-19.

OUR APPRECIATION AND THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING: NZ Umpire Coach/Coach Assessors

Alannah Robinson, Alison Cormack, Alone Trainor, Belinda Knapp, Carol Chamberlain, Colleen Bond, Ellen Waide, Kathy Ferguson, Kirsty Brame, Kristie Simpson, Liz Cairns, Maree McMillan, Richard Jocelyn, Sasha McLeod.

Netball South Zone Coach/Coach Assessors

Allanah Cunningham, Adrienne Ensor, Alexis Wadworth, Anne Mitchell, Becky Slade, Emma Martin, Irene Mather, Jenny Pitcaithly, Jo Babe, Kerry Seymour, Michelle Findlater, Rachel Smith, Tania Pleace, Teresa Alexandra, Tina Williamson.

Netball South Centre Coach/Coach Assessors

Alice Read, Allison McDonald C, Angela McDonald Anne Meffan, Ashleigh Sinclair, Bronwyn Walsh, Carolyn Milne, Christine Dyer, David Kitea (C), Deb Kinder, Elaisa Chapman, Emily Taylor (C), Gabby Knapp, Gail Shanks, Gail Wylie C, Hamish Pinckney C, Hilary Smith, Jenny Bruce, Jana van Niekerk C, Jo Shaw, JoanLea Wilson, Karyn Quaid, Kathi Scott, Keyle Brown, Kylie Batchelor, Liz Freeman, Lou Dougherty C, Megan Lindsay C, Natasha Lake, Nivonne Schultz, Renee Brown, Rachel Fowler, Raewyn King, Renee Webster, Rochelle Gordon, Savanna Steele C, Sharon Eade, Sue Morrison-Bailey C, Susan Fitzgibbon, Thea Pinckney C, Tracey Gibson.

BENCH OFFICIALS

There has been good cohesion between benchies in our Zone in 2022 and the improvements and changes occurring, although challenging, are not proving an issue for us. There have been some great training opportunities within the INC, Eastern Netball and Dunedin centres and Netball South competitions bringing a lot of new cadets to the bench. Team performance at tournaments was excellent and we can be proud of the achievements. Tournament attending for revalidations and accreditations has been addressed with a four-year revalidation period. This will take the pressure off trying to get everyone through in the appropriate year. This year there was a great opportunity with the SIST and Steel pre-season in Dunedin, providing a good opening to do some training for the Dunedin-based officials.

Southland Wide League

Availability of benchies again this year was a challenge but we managed to cover all games with at least two. Split venues do continue to create some problems but staggering times for games in Invercargill was a huge help.

Major Supporters

Community Partners

Sponsors

Sponsors And Funders

Netball South and the Ascot Park Hotel Southern Steel would like to thank our loyal family of sponsors and community funders. Their support makes our success a reality.

Pathways

2022 was a big year in our pathways space. After a thorough review of all of our pathway programmes, a new focus in the zone pathway operational plan saw a significant change from previous years where the development programmes were delivered regionally, limiting the accessibility to participants. In 2022 each centre was given an opportunity to opt for the level of support they required from the zone to deliver the Steel Steps Centre Development Programme. This provided both zone and centre with clear guidelines of roles and responsibilities which enabled the programmes to be delivered successfully with a 319% increase in attendance across all age groups from previous years.

As part of our ongoing pathways programmes, 80 players were selected to be in the 2022 Steel Steps Accelerator Programme late last year. Unfortunately, due to COVID we were unable to deliver our three-day camp in Alexandra, however with the help of our Southern Steel players, we were able to deliver online sessions to all players which covered topics such as game day preparation, specialist positional advice and other tips and tricks of what it is like to be a high performance athlete.

Netball South was pleased to host both the Otago Secondary School and Southland Secondary School tournaments in June and July. These are always a fantastic display of our best secondary school players and enable teams to prepare for their pinnacle event later in the season, the South Island Secondary School Championship. This year, the south zone was very well represented in the final placings across all three grades. A special mention to Columba College and St Hilda’s Collegiate who placed in the top five of A grade and went on to compete in Porirua in October at the NZ Secondary School Championship, along with Cromwell College who took out the B Grade final and will be promoted to A Grade in 2023. Eleven players from the south were selected in the tournaments.

Ascot Park Hotel Southern Steel

The 2022 Steel team had a familiar look about it with seven players returning from the previous season. We welcomed back Georgia Heffernan and recruited two championship-winning players in Kate Burley and Saviour Tui.

Our management team welcomed Andrew Macintosh and Stacey Allen as team physiotherapists.

When new members come into your team it is always a good time to reflect and think about what you do and why. Our new members brought their own experience and innovation and we worked together to give our team a winning edge. With a new shooting end we were somewhat unknown and untested. We built two solid combinations and exposed Georgia and Saviour to time in the ANZP every week. As they played more minutes they were able to show what they could do individually and competed to hold on to the GA bib. George Fisher provided a steady anchor in the back and the attack end found its flow to produce some stunning netball performances.

The defensive end built a collective pressure that starved teams of flow and disrupted timing, allowing them gain ball through interceptions from great unit defence.

All was tracking well and we managed to beat a full strength Mystics team at home to hold onto the Georgie Salter Memorial trophy. Fast forward two days and COVID hit the team hard. With five players testing positive within 24 hours our team was in isolation. As the team recovered our management team were outstanding in managing their return to play protocols for each player which proved to be a fine balancing act. Although we worked hard to ensure that COVID wouldn’t define our season, we did struggle to get back to that winning performance culture we had begun to create before it hit. I was very proud in the way Andrew lead and monitored each player back safely to the court with always putting their well-being first. This was no easy task.

As we kept bouncing back to the court we then had to navigate our way through a condensed competition where we had nine games in five weeks with most of those on the road. We had a disappointing end to the season where we battled to gain consistency and struggled to perform under pressure when it mattered most.

Although we finished fourth we still had plenty to be proud of including beating every team in the competition. We had three players earn Silver Fern trials (Shannon Saunders, Kate Heffernan and Kate Burley) with Shannon and Kate making the Commonwealth Games team. Dayna Kaio was named the manager for the NZA team with Reinga named head coach of NZA and then elevated to the Silver Ferns while Noeline Taurua had COVID.

The end of the 2022 season saw Michael Jacobs step down from his role as the head strength and conditioning coach. He had been with the team for eight years, amounting over 100 games in his time with two championships included. He left the players he coached in a better condition than they arrived in. His straight-forward approach and innovation will be missed but we are thankful for all the passion, creativity and drive he gave to us. Thank you Mikey.

The 2023 season will be a step up for all those involved as a thorough review of the 2022 season allowed us to identify areas of importance moving forward to help us get back to the top.

National Netball League

Jo Morrison was re-appointed head coach of the Southern Blast team, along with assistant coach Abbey McKenzie. The 2022 season saw a new look Southern Blast team selected, with only five players returning from last year’s squad of 16. The average age of this year’s team was 19.5 years old with half of the team being school leavers. So, it was a season of rebuilding and experiencing the weekly demands and expectations of performance netball at the NNL level. With eight games played the Blast placed fifth overall with some exciting netball as they grew in confidence towards to the end of the season.

The alignment and integration of the Southern Blast and Southern Steel has been developing well over the past two seasons, with four Southern Blast players getting an opportunity to take the court for the Steel team during this season and one of our Blast players being contracted to the Southern Steel for 2023.

National Age Group Performances

It was great to see five U18 teams competing at the U18 National Tournament in Christchurch in July. Teams from Invercargill, Southland Country, Central Lakes, Wakatipu, Dunedin and North Otago played over the four-day tournament in some very trying weather conditions. It was a great opportunity for players, coaches, managers and umpires to go up against the best in the country in the only age group national tournament that is held in New Zealand throughout the season. Final placings saw Invercargill finish 7th, Dunedin 9th, Central lakes 19th, Southland Country 21st, North Otago 32nd and Wakatipu 36th.

National Development Camp

A highlight for our top secondary school players was the selection of 11 players to the National Development Camp - South Island in Ashburton in January. The players were put through a vigorous programme over three days lead by NZ Secondary School coaches and NNL coaches. This was part of the selection process for the NZ Secondary School Squad which assembled later in the year in Auckland to play a quadrangular tournament. Emilie Nicholson from Dunedin Netball Centre was one of three South Island players invited to attend the NZSS trial and was selected in the NZSS A team along with Jo Morrison as one of the NZSS A coaches.