Netball NZ rule out trans-Tasman league return, but open to end of season iteration

Netball New Zealand have ruled out a trans-Tasman netball league returning anytime soon.

The Silver Ferns’ miserable World Cup showing has sparked calls about whether the domestic ANZ Premiership was adequately preparing the country’s best netballers.

Dame Noeline Taurua’s side stumbled to a fourth place finish, their worst in history – losing their final three games in Cape Town, combined with a draw against South Africa.

The trans-Tasman netball league, coined ‘the ANZ Championship’, ran from 2008-16 with Kiwi teams largely struggling against their Australian rivals. Australian sides captured the title in eight of the nine seasons with the Waikato-Bay of Plenty Magic the lone New Zealand side to triumph in 2012.

Since 2017 the two countries have gone it alone with New Zealand running the ANZ Premiership and Australia staging Super Netball, featuring the controversial two point ‘Super Shot’.

NNZ poured cold water on the possibility of a trans-Tasman netball league reunion in the future, saying they were committed to their own competition. While a full trans-Tasman league had been ruled out, there could be scope for an end of season crossover featuring the top teams from each country.

“Both countries have got commercial arrangements, broadcasting arrangements, their own player pathways that they’ve established and are now working towards,” NNZ head of commercial David Cooper said.

“If we were to move to anything of that ilk [a return to the trans-Tasman league] it would take longer to get to, but equally there’s other iterations that could be considered instead of jumping to something like that.”

The earliest any potential trans-Tasman netball iteration could take place would be from 2025.

NNZ and Netball Australia had engaged in early talks about how they could work together domestically in the future with multiple options discussed.

“If we are to find a trans-Tasman competition that can work with what we both want from our domestic leagues it may need to look different to anything that’s been tried or done in the past.”

Leading Silver Ferns lining up in Super Netball remained off limits though. NNZ confirmed their policy remained unchanged with players needing to compete in the ANZ Premiership to be eligible for the national side.

Laura Langman and Maria Folau were given special exemptions late in their careers to play in Super Netball. Katrina Rore and Kimiora Poi received permission to compete in the latter stages of the 2019 Super Netball season with the ANZ Premiership complete prior to the World Cup.

This week it was revealed there were serious doubts about the financial viability of Super Netball. A secret report found the league and its teams were on track to lose $A7.5 million ($NZ8.1 million) in the next three years.

The ANZ Premiership was reviewed annually at the end of each season. Cooper said they were always working hard with stakeholders to make sure the competition was meeting its objectives and striving to be better.

Talks between NNZ and Netball Australia had been positive, but were in the preliminary stages, identifying what might or might not work.

“There’s some options we’ve already looked at and taken off the table.

“We know they won’t work for the purposes we’d want to do. There has been some narrowing down of options, but it’s still very much in the early stages of exploring what they might look like and what the preferred state might be for both countries.”

Despite the Silver Ferns’ disappointing World Cup performance, Cooper believed the ANZ Premiership had been a success over the past seven years.

Kate Heffernan, Grace Nweke and Karin Burger had all started out in the second-tier national netball league (NNL) before progressing to the premiership and then graduating onto the Silver Ferns. Maddy Gordon, Tiana Metuarau, and Poi are others to have done the same.

“I think we need to remember in 2019 when we won the World Cup, one of the things people were very quick to point out was we were playing in our own league and our own competition – playing netball our way” Cooper said.

“Four years later when we lose the World Cup, we’ve got to be careful we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

Cooper touched on the fact the Ferns had won the Constellation Cup against Australia for the first time in nine years in 2021 while playing in the ANZ Premiership. Last year, New Zealand drew 2-2 against the Diamonds in the Constellation Cup with Australia prevailing narrowly on goal aggregate (215 to 208).

Tactix head coach Marianne Delaney-Hoshek, who has been in the role since early 2017, described this year’s ANZ Premiership as the best in competition history.

Nineteen of the 47 matches (40%) were decided by five goals or fewer and the top three finalists were only found in the last round.

Delaney-Hoshek said it was pivotal the ANZ Premiership continued to evolve and didn’t rest on its laurels.

“For me looking at it, I go how can we innovate because the world is catching up with us. There’s a lot of players out of different African countries and Jamaica that are playing in these other competitions and that’s what’s really giving them the strength now.

“You’ve got to go now how can we innovate to make us even better.”

Former Silver Ferns coach Yvonne Willering argued there were too many basic errors in ANZ Premiership games and the intensity wasn’t high enough. Teams could also cruise through the season, knowing they could make the finals with three or four losses.

The best overseas players competed in Super Netball too with the ANZ Premiership largely left with import players not good enough to be signed there.

Delaney-Hoshek believed the ANZ Premiership needed to look at dropping from three round games against each side to two. Each side would play 10 round games, rather than the current 15.

She was in favour of introducing the ‘Super Shot’ from Australia, which allows shooters to score two goals by shooting from a 1.9m designated zone within the goal circle. The rule was active in the final five minutes of each quarter.

“I just think it’s quite a great entertainment piece as well for crowds. That might open up how we play and might make us think a bit differently how we play.”

Delaney-Hoshek raised the idea of including players, who represented Fiji, Samoa, or Tonga internationally as locals, not counting as imports. It would not only benefit the game in New Zealand, but also help grow the sport in the Pacific Islands.

“I’d like to see that whereby you could have one Pacific player, where they weren’t seen as an import. It’s a way of us supporting them and them supporting us.”

If a trans-Tasman component wasn’t included at the end of the premiership season, Delaney-Hoshek said it would be helpful to have Australian umpires at team trainings from time to time.

Some New Zealand players struggled initially when they faced umpires from another country because of slightly different rule interpretations.

Whether NNZ could better support players in the second-tier NNL, who were potential future Silver Ferns, was another valid question, Delaney-Hoshek said.

Those players were effectively voluntary, but were compensated if they trained with a premiership team or played in a match.

“I think there could be far more investment in that group.”