On the back of several ferocious pre-season matches, players and pundits believe the third installment of Super Netball – which begins on Saturday and enters uncharted territory when it halts mid-season for the sport’s pinnacle event, the World Cup – will dispel, once and for all, the notion of netball being “non-contact”.
Reflecting growing advances in high performance programs across all eight franchises, “stronger, faster, fitter athletes” are expected to deliver fierce contests from round one, which features a double-header in Melbourne, with the Vixens taking on the Queensland Firebirds and Collingwood playing reigning premiers, the Sunshine Coast.
On Sunday, the Giants play cross-town rivals the NSW Swifts in Sydney and the Adelaide Thunderbirds are at home to the West Coast Fever.
Netball Australia chief executive Marne Fechner says 2019 is the year to consign the “non-contact” label to history.
“There’s been a notion around netball that it’s non-contact; that’s incorrect, it’s semi-contact and when you’ve got very competitive, very strong athletes in a contest where it means something … you’re going to have more contest, more physicality, dare I say it, more devastating impact,” Fechner says.
Today’s elite netballers bear little resemblance to those who played the game even a decade ago, she says, and it translates to the court in the world’s premier league.
“We’ve got greater strength and conditioning and more science and analysis around the sport than ever before. The output of that is stronger, faster, fitter athletes. We’re building different athletes than we had 10 or 20 years ago. Is 2019 going to be fiercer? Yes, I think it is; that’s the nature of the women that play our game.
“There might be ribbons and braids still out here, but they’re on performance athletes and they want to win,” Fechner says.
One of the league’s most powerful players, Queensland Firebirds captain and Diamond midcourter Gabi Simpson, agrees muscle will take centre stage this season.
“It’s not necessarily physicality, but strength. The time the athletes put into their athleticism means you can have that strength, but it’s matched. If both players aren’t impacted, then it’s fair game. It’s become a new strategy, that’s how the game is evolving,” Simpson says.
In a number of bruising pre-season tournaments held in recent weeks, Simpson says the umpires adjudicated that “matching of strength” well and expects that to continue. “I think it’s really exciting,” she says.
Commentator Sue Gaudion says the growing athleticism and strength of players is a natural evolution, but highlights the increased depth of teams as also key.
“Every year, in any sport, you get an increase in capacity, ability and athleticism, but in the third season of Super Netball, there’s another element; it’s the quality and depth of the benches, it’s now far more significant,” she says.
“If you go back to the first year and look at the bench players, versus year three, you’ll note the capacity and court time (they get) is far more significant and that pushes your starting seven.
“So, I think the world’s best netball competition has gotten stronger because of the players now in it; we’ve got a greater depth of quality,” Gaudion, who is also a consultant specialist coach with the West Coast Fever, says.
The level of pre-season play has been staggering, Gaudion says. “Compared to last year, the standard has vastly improved. It was like game one some days, so that gives an indication of where things are at.”
While there’s been a number of big-name moves in the off-season – notably Caitlin Bassett from Lightning to the Giants, Nat Medhurst from Fever to Collingwood, Caitlin Thwaites from the Pies to the Vixens and Geva Mentor and Kelsey Browne from Sunshine Coast to Collingwood – Gaudion says most teams have retained their core groups.
“I don’t think things go back to scratch,” she says.
“There’s been movement, but they’ve mostly been big names and those type of experienced players fit into a new side pretty well. It’s about how quickly they mould to the coach’s structures and game plans and how quickly the coach adjusts to the strengths of their new players.”
The “clinical” Melbourne Vixens – who boast five potential Diamonds; Thwaites, Jo Weston, Emily Mannix, Liz Watson and Kate Moloney, as well as South African Ine-Mari Venter and Jamaican Kadie-Ann Dehaney – will be tough to beat in 2019, Gaudion says.
As will the new-look Pies, who have added Medhurst, Mentor, Browne and 20-year-old Jamaican shooter Shimona Nelson. But can coach Rob Wright build a season on the back of a young, relatively inexperienced goal shooter like Nelson?
“That’s tough, isn’t it? But you know what? She’s a real competitor; doesn’t like to be beaten and I think it would be tough except for all the experience around her. I think that helps her immensely, having Medhurst, Kim Ravaillion, Madi Browne. They’re smart and they know how to alleviate pressure at the right time,” Gaudion says.
Bookies have the Melbourne sides at equal-second flag favourite, with Fever and the Giants equal favourite.
The only big change to Stacey Marinkovich’s Fever, who beat the Vixens in a recent pre-season clash in Perth, is the addition of shooter Alice Teague-Neeld, to replace Medhurst.
“Fever probably do go in with that advantage (of minimal changes). Last year Fever was branded as being a predictable seven, but this year I think Stacey is blessed with possibilities,” Gaudion says.
With a spearhead like Bassett – paired with England star Jo Harten – the Giants won’t struggle to score, but Gaudion sees a pain point. “While I think their attacking will be sensational, I do think that have areas of weakness, particularly defensively, just from an experience point of view.”
And as for the unprecedented World Cup break – the season will take a four-week hiatus after nine rounds and then feature five more rounds, plus finals after the event – Gaudion says teams need to control what they can, while they can.
“No clubs have experience with this upcoming predicament, so everyone’s going to be in level territory. Everyone can control their fate a lot better in the first nine rounds, so that’s key.”
