Commonwealth Bank Trophy

Wow, a big congratulations goes to the Sydney Swifts. They have achieved what no other team has achieved in the history of the competition, go through all the rounds undefeated. Hopefully this will not hamper them in the finals, I doubt it will as they have had some close games this year and have been able to fight through and get the win.

Also, congratulations to the Queensland Firebirds. This team has come from what seemed like a region that was going to be dropped from the competition last year, to a finals team. Vicki Wilson has dragged this team through the hard times and showed them what true hard work can achieve. Not a bad effort, especially when you think that she only made minor changes to the Firebirds squad. They have come in fourth on the ladder and will take part in the finals series for the first time.

So this is what the ladder looks like at the end of the Commonwealth Bank Trophy Series

Sydney TAB Swifts 28
Medibank Adelaide Thunderbirds 22
Melbourne First National Phoenix 20
Queensland Firebirds 14
Allied Pickfords Melbourne Kestrels 12
Perth Orioles 10
McDonald's Hunter Jaegers 6
AIS Canberra Darters 0

Using Hooler hoops.

2 hooler hoops
2 lines of players
Bean bags.

1. Have the players line up behind each other. Place hoop about 5 metres away from the starting player. One player at a time is to run to the hoop and land with one foot inside the hooler hoop. The landing foot in the hoop is the pivoting foot. The other foot is not allowed inside the hooler hoop. Pivot around to face the line then run back to the end of the line.

2. Set up as above.
Have the player run to the hoop and land with both feet in the hoop. They are to choose a pivoting foot and then pivot (as above) to face the line and then run back to the end of the line.

3. Set up as above
Each line has 1 been bag.
First player is to run to the hooler hoop and bend down and place the been bag in the hoop. Next player is to run to the hooler hoop and pick up the bean bag and run back to the line and give to the next player.

Notes:
Players are to alternate the direction that they pivot.
Players are to alternate the pivot foot.
Players need to have their eyes up at all times
Add a ball to the drill. – As the player lands in the hoop they are to catch a ball.

Pippies are doing so well

Ok I havent updated about the Pippies.........

for a little while so for everyone wanting to know how they are doing, here it is!
The team has continued to improve thanks to all the work that their coach has put in. She hasnt made the error of trying to get them to learn to much to quickly and only adds one or two new skills each training. All the girls then get to work hard on the skill and actually learn and understand it. We consentrated on the stepping rule this week, and the girls have done really well with it. They look like little netball players when they catch the ball now!

Stepping is a hard rule for netta players to understand and actually use in a game. As you can imagine, you don't get taught to stop when you catch a ball! They have also been working very hard on defending from infront of the player. Another words keeping the player behind you (still facing the forward) and shadowing their moves so it is hard for the attacking player to get free. Once again this is hard for Netta players to pick up, and use consistantly as they need to use their parifial vision. Also young Netta players tend to raise there arms when defending from the front so that they can stop the attacking player from driving forward. As we know you are not aloud to have your arms up, so that is also another skill that needs to be learnt and mastered when defending from infront of your player. They have done very well at keeping their arms down.

We are still working at letting the ball go quicker when attacking, I think that when they have mastered that skill we will look like a completely different team out there on the court. We got a glimpse of this on saturday when the girls put an excellent passage of attacking play together and then finished it off with a goal. All the attacking moves were quick and sharp and all players actually let the ball go quickly so that the other teams defence didnt get time to set up and intercept the passes.

We even scored 2 goals in one of our games! That is the first time so a big congats to the Pippies. As I have said they continue to improve and they are really enjoying playing the game of Netta.
Our fastest improver at the moment would be Katie. I can see a real little defender in her already. She was such a gentle timid little thing at the start (she is still very gentle thankfully!) but she is really starting to show her true potential. Like I was telling her mum she is technically aggressive not physically, which is what you are looking for at this stage of development. Great work Katie!

Test one, New Zealand 52 to Australia 40

I think I should start by saying congratulations to the New Zealand team on their win last night. I thought that that was the best game of netball from the New Zealanders that I have seen in a long time. I have thought over the last 5-6 times we have played them they have basically just bullied us out of the game. Due to some good tough umpiring this part of their game was kept to a minimum and that allowed the New Zealand players to play and excellent game of netball.
Although van Dyk top scored as usual she was well teamed up with the young Goal Attack, Maria Tutaia. This made for a tough time for both Liz Ellis and Bianca Chatfield. Maria moves well and created lots of opportunities for both of the shooters.
Australia had our chance to stay in touch with some great turn overs in the defence end of the court but couldn’t capitalise on these until the 3rd Quarter. I thought that when we crossed over into the attacking third Australia panicked and then gave the ball straight back to the Silver Ferns with either a bad choice of pass or an ill executed one.
Australia lost the game in the 2nd quarter but to their credit they took control of the game in the 2nd half of the game. Australia worked really hard in the third quarter to peg back the lead to 7 goals but unfortunately was unable to keep up the momentum in the 4th quarter. There are many positives that Australia can take from last nights game and one of them would be the performance of Susan Pratley. After a nervous start, she came into the game and made her presence felt.
Game two of the Holden Test series will be played at the Acer Arena in Sydney from 8.15pm on Tuesday night and I'm sure that we will be working on our over all performance and if they can play a solid 60 minutes we will see a better result.
You can purchase tickets to the test from Ticketek.

Australia vs New Zealand

THURSDAY JULY 20:
Australian 21U vs New Zealand 21U
When: 7.30pm (curtain raiser commences at 5.30pm)
Where: Insports Cornubia Park Sports Centre146 Bryants Road, Shailer Park(07) 3806 4340
Tickets: Available from Netball Queensland on 07 3848 6330Adults - $15.00Junior (14 and under) - $8.00Family (2A and 2J) - $40.00
SATURDAY JULY 22:
HOLDEN NETBALL TEST SERIES - TEST ONE
Curtain Raiser:6.00pm - Australian 21U vs New Zealand 21U
8.10pm - Australia vs New Zealand
Where: Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Boondall QLD
Tickets: Ticketek - call 132 849 or visit www.ticketek.com.au Bring along all your friends. Discounts for groups apply!Netball in style? Corporate tickets available.
Email infonet@netball.asn.au for more information or to purchase tickets.
TV Time: Saturday July 22 nationally at 10.35pm on ABC TV

TUESDAY JULY 25:
HOLDEN NETBALL TEST SERIES - TEST TWO
8.15pm - Australia vs New Zealand
Where: Acer Arena (formerly Sydney SuperDome), Sydney Olympic Park
Tickets: Ticketek - call 132 849 or visit www.ticketek.com.au Bring along all your friends. Discounts for groups apply!Netball in style? Corporate tickets available.
Email infonet@netball.asn.au for more information or to purchase tickets.
TV Time: Tuesday July 25 nationally at 11.10pm on ABC TV
Radio: Live from 8.05-9.30pm (AEST)on local ABC Radio stations in:
Tasmania (8.05-10.00pm)
South Australia (7.35-9.30pm)
Queensland (8.05-10.00pm)
Victoria (8.05-10.00pm)
Newcastle (8.05-10.00pm)
Northern Territory (7.35-9.30pm)
(information brought to you from www.netball.asn.au)

Netball Training Schedule

The following training schedule is based on a 1 hour training session. Times for each section of the schedule are estimates. The following should be used as a guideline and can be adapted to longer training sessions. It is important to put the time into planning your training schedule prior to any training session.

Organisation – 5 minutes
This is the time to get everyone together and ready to start training. You may like to discuss the last game at this time and also your expectations for the training session. This time also allows stragglers to show up and get ready to go.

Warm Up – 10 minutes
Getting the body ready for the physical work that it is about to do. This stage is important as it helps to stop injuries occurring and also gets the players ‘mentally’ prepared for training.

Your warm up should include a physical warm up – slow jog stretching and or an appropriate warm up game, and also a skill based warm up – ball games, sprints, reflexes etc

Skill Development - 20 minutes
It is important to spend time developing and practicing the skills needed to play the game of netball. This is the main part of any training session.
Skills to practice – Movement, attack, defence, footwork, catching and throwing.

You will want to use drills and activities that the players can do as individuals and also in groups.
Start with basic drills and move onto more challenging activities, both physically and technically.

Match play / Court work – 15 mins
Match play - This is the part of the training session that your players will be able to put the skills that they have just learnt and practiced into play.
Court work- Is a time that a coach can place the players on the court and talk through positional plays on the court, who is around them, were to move to/from and also to practice throw ins. It is important to remember as a coach that there is a lot of stationary time for the players and to try not to spend large amounts of time this.

Cool Down - 10 minutes
The cool down is so that the muscles can relax and get rid of built up lactic acid. The cool down should take about the same time as the warm up. Players should go for a slow jog to walk and stretching of all major muscle groups that have been used in the training session. Whilst players are cooling down this is also a good time to talk to the players about the training session, highlighting the main points and giving feed back to the players.

Julie Fitzgerald Appointed Assistant Coach

By Netball Australia

Sydney TAB Swifts coach Julie Fitzgerald has been appointed as the National 21 and Under Assistant Coach for the July test series in Brisbane.
Julie Fitzgerald is a Level 3 Accredited Coach and has an impressive coaching résumé that includes over 26 years experience. She has coached the NSW 19U, 21U and Opens teams and was Apprentice Coach to the Australian Netball Team in 1997.

Fitzgerald has coached the Sydney TAB Swifts for the past 10 years, winning two premierships in 2001 and 2004. Her expertise in netball has ensured the Sydney TAB Swifts have never missed a place in the Commonwealth Bank Trophy Finals Series in the 10 years of competition. Julie Fitzgerald was also named Netball Australia’s Coach of the Year in 2004.

“This is a wonderful opportunity and I am delighted to have some involvement in netball at an international level,” said Fitzgerald. “I am excited about the depth of talent we have in this area and look forward to being able to contribute to the players’ development.” For more click HERE

Looking for sporting goods?

I know this is a little off the subject of Netball, but I realise that most of us have more sporting interests other than the great sport of netball!! So I have found a site that will link you up to most sporting goods stores - from running to fishing and everything (well losts anyways!) in between. Just click HERE and you will be taken straight there. It is called AUSPlaza and all the sports stores are australian.

Pippies Netta Team Update

We got our second Goal!

Congratulations to all the girls in Pippies team. What a great effort for such a young team. The girls have been working hard on their basic netball skills and have scored another goal. The reaction from all the girls was great! They were all so excited. All the netta girls are having a great time playing and they are all doing their best. Great work.

Ball and Movement skills. Netta to Advanced

The following drills can be used from netta right through to the advance players.

1 worker
1 passer
Start facing each other about 2 metres apart. Worker moves to the left, passer passes the ball to the player. The passer is to pass the ball infront of the worker. Worker lands on the outside foot ( left foot) and then passes the ball back. Worker moves back to the start position. Repeat the drill to the right side. Repeat 5 times.











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1 Passer
Rest of team in a line
Passer stands about 2 metres in front of the line. The first player in the line will drive out to the left or right and the passer will pass them the ball. Worker passes back to the passer and moves to the end of the line. Repeat till all players have had at least 3 turns.

Variation - have the workers lead to the right and then drive to the left and receive the ball, and vice versa.
- first player in the line is the defender, second player is the attacker.









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1 worker
1 passer
Have the worker on transverse line and the passer on the opposite transverse line. Worker runs towards the passer and receives a shoulder pass from the passer. Worker needs to catch the ball whilst still moving onto the ball. Worker passes the ball back to the passer and then runs backwards to the transverse line. Repeat 5 times.

Variation - Passer throws a lob
- Passer varies the passes eg shoulder pass, lob, bounce pass.

Anne Sargent

It is interesting to note that the ABC has said that they are "focussed more heavily on expert commentary." Yet they still have Steve Robilliard? I can understand that they need to get some fresh faces on, but shouldn't they be commentating next to Anne, not instead off? Liz and Eloise are doing a good job on commentating the games but Anne is such a polished performer that they would only enhance the commentating of the games if placed with her, not instead of her. The ABC notes that they would like expert commentary, so as I said above why have Steve? Shouldnt Anne have his job? Has he had recent netball experience? Has he had any on court netball experience.....mmmmmmmmmm I DONT THINK SO!

Get Anne back on tv, along side the newbies please.

ABC Denies Anne was sacked due to age......

By ABC Netball

The ABC has denied claims prominent netball commentator Anne Sargeant was sacked because of her age.
The 48-year-old former Australian netball captain said she was dumped from the ABC's netball commentary team because she was considered too old.
But ABC television's head of sport, Iain Knight, has denied Ms Sargeant's claims, saying the decision not to use her was based on a new approach to netball coverage, focussed more heavily on expert commentary.
To read full article please click here

Australia Netball Re Anne Sargent

By Netball Australia

In light of recent media reports, Netball Australia wishes to make the following statement.
Netball Australia recognises Anne Sargeant as one of the most valued members of the netball community nationally. Anne is highly respected within Netball Australia and the State and Territory members associations and continues to be one of netball’s greatest ambassadors.
At no stage was Netball Australia party to the ABC decision regarding Anne Sargeant. News of the decision was conveyed to Netball Australia after Anne was called. Netball Australia has requested that the ABC consider re-instating Anne Sargeant to the commentary team. To read more click here

Broadbent Closes Chapter on Internationals

By Netball Australia

Two-time Commonwealth Games netball representative, Alison Broadbent has announced her retirement from international netball today, Thursday May 11, bringing to an end her five year career with the Australian Netball Team.
Broadbent, who lives on the Central Coast of New South Wales, made her international debut in March 2001 and has since represented Australia on 35 occasions.
“I have achieved everything I wanted to achieve in netball,” said Broadbent. “I have been to two Commonwealth Games and a World Netball Championships, which is something young netballers dream about doing.”
“I would have to say the highlight of my career would definitely be winning the Commonwealth Games Silver Medal in Melbourne in front of my family and friends.”
In 1993 Broadbent was named in the Australian 21U Team. It was later that same year during the National Netball Championships that Broadbent suffered her first knee injury requiring reconstructive surgery, an injury that she again suffered in 1995.
With relentless determination Broadbent worked at regaining her fitness, strength and speed and in 1999 she was selected in the Australian Open Squad.
“I am not going to give netball away completely but feel that now is the right time to say goodbye to the Australian Team,” said Broadbent. “I’ll continue to play with the Sydney TAB Swifts and will focus on winning another Commonwealth Bank Trophy premiership.”
For more click here

Scholz Retires from International Netball

By Netball Australia

Australian representative and Medibank Adelaide Thunderbirds veteran, Peta Scholz has announced her retirement from international netball.
The 29-year-old wing defence made her international debut against New Zealand in 1999 and has since gained 54 Australian test caps to establish herself as one of Australia’s most prominent and talented netballers.
Scholz was a team member of many successful campaigns for Australia during her career including winning the World Youth Cup in 1996, the World Netball Championships in 1999 and the Commonwealth Games Gold Medal at the 2002 Manchester Games.
“I really enjoyed being part of the Australian Team,” said Scholz. “I enjoyed the bond we shared and the lifelong friends I made. I loved getting an opportunity to see different parts of the world that I would not have seen had I not played netball. I also loved the feeling of winning and the competitive spirit within the team.”
More click here

Passing Drills

Passing

Get players in pairs.

Players move down the court passing the ball back and forth to each other. The players should pass to each other a certain amount in each third.

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Get players in two even lines down the court facing each other .
1 ball between 2 players.

The players are to shoulder pass the ball back and forth to each other, When they have done ten passes both lines are to take one step backwards. Repeat until the both lines are on the court lines

--------------------------------------------------------------
Get players in pairs.

The players work in pairs. One is the worker the other is the passer.
Facing each other, worker moves to their left and receives a pass. Worker then passes back and moves back to the starting position. Repeat on the left side 5 times increasing the distance with each pass. Repeat the drill on the right side. Encourage the worker to land on their outside foot.

Netta Training Drills

Small bean bags to throw

Get girls to stand in a circle. Start with 2 bean bags. Throw the bags to each other across the circle. Gradually add more bean bags so only 4 players don’t have one. Throw the bags to each other at about shoulder height.

Skills – ☻Hand / eye coordination
☻Keep eyes up
☻Defending the ball (bean bag) using hands when more than one bag is thrown at them.
☻Peripheral vision
☻Not ducking.


Dodging and Pivoting

4 markers per group
groups of 4 or 5

Line markers up, evenly spaced (about 1metre apart)
Players weave in and out of markers, pushing of the outside foot when changing direction. When they get to the end the player goes around the last marker and faces back to the group then repeats the weaving to get back to there group. Go to the end of the line. Repeat until all players have had at least 2 turns.





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All players in a line
Markers about 10 metres away
Players are to run at ¾ speed to marker, pivot on one foot and run back to the start, pivot on other foot then stop, ready to start again.






Movement and decision making.

All players start on the base line.
Coach is in the middle of the court.
Couch calls out instructions for what movements players to do – left, right, forward, backward, up (jump), down (touch the ground).
Players move around the court following coaches instructions until coach says stop.

Defending

Shadow defending- This is were 2 players stand together, one player is to make the moves and the other player is to copy the movement.
1 Have players face each other. One is the mover, the other is the shadower.
2 Have players facing the same way. The player that is behind is the mover and the front player is the shadower.

This builds defending skills for following their opposition players on court and to stay in a front defending position using their peripheral vision to follow opposition player.

Throwing / Catching

1 ball between 2 players
Players are to stand in 2 even lines facing each other.

Throw the ball to each other
Chest pass
Shoulder pass - right
Shoulder pass – left
Bounce pass
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1 Ball each

Stand on the spot, toss the ball in the air as high as possible:-
Catch the ball before it bounces
Touch the ground and catch the ball
Spin around and catch
Clap and catch
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1 Ball between to players

Player 1 holds the ball out in front at chest height. Player 2 stands arms length away and has hands at the side.
Player 1 drops the ball, player 2 catches the ball before it bounces.

Netta Game

Great work girls,

I have started recieving comments on passer byers of how much our team have improved. So a big congrats to you all! We got it into the goal circle and had lots of shots today, which as far as I am concerned is really the idea of the game at this early stage. Any goals that they are able to get is really only a bonus. Unfortunately our girls havent had a Netball post that has been at the right height for them to practice on until a couple of weeks ago, so they are a little rusty on that skill, but as long as they are getting a go at shooting in the game thats what really matters!
The Pippies came up against a team today where most of the girls were 8yrs so they had a definate advantage over us but I think we held our own really well. The girls had some really good channels of play down the court and let go of the ball a lot better than in the past. They are all working hard on that skill!
Their defence continues to improve and we got a lot of intercepts and chased the loose balls really well. Kendyll continues to make lots of improvements too, I can see her being a really nice player in the future. Demi - Great shadow defending. I was so impressed when I saw her doing this so well, it was only last week that she started to 'understand' what infront means! We were calling it out to her all the time and she kept standing beside her player, we couldnt figure out why! Thats a great effort Demi.

Great work girls!

Ps - Marli - I didnt see you duck....... excellent!

Fun Net has Started, .........At last!!

FUN NET HAS STARTED ,..........AT LAST!!

Yippi, fun net has started. My youngest daughter has been waiting for 2 months, ready to go since registration, only to see her big sister start Netta weeks prior to her starting fun net. I think she almost exploded with antisipation!
She had a great time, the group that they have this year is much smaller (at the moment) than last years, which as far as I am concerned is great as they get more attention. And - sorry mums who's kids were there last year- there looks to be some very talented little girls in this group. Most of them moved really well, and were well coordinated so they aready have a really good start at learning the multitude of skills needed to play netball. Heid's was bursting with energy, she was so excited and put her all into all the 'games' that they played. Good on you. I think I got as much enjoyment out of watching her as she got doing fun net.

Keep it up, we think its great that you love it.

Pippies Draw

Pippies Netta Netball Draw

6/5/06 8.30am court 6
13/5/06 9.30am court 1
20/5/06 9.30am court 6
27/5/06 8.30am court1
03/6/06 8.30am court 6
10/6/06 NO NETBALL CHALLENG CUP
17/6/06 8.30am court 3
24/6/06 9.30am court 7
01/7/06 NO NETBALL - SCHOOL HOLIDAYS
08/7/06 NO NETBALL - SCHOOL HOLIDAYS
15/7/06 9.30am court 1
22/7/06 8.30am court 6
29/7/06 NO NETBALL - COUNTRY CARNIVAL
05/8/06 8.30am court 1
12/8/06 9.30am court 6
19/8/06 8.30am court 1
26/8/06 8.30am court 5

8.30am Games - please be at the courts ready to warm up by 8.15am
9.30am Games - please be at the courts ready to warm up by 9.15am

Sunshine Coasts Winners

Division 2 16 years WINNERS!
Congratulations to the 16 years Sunshine Coast team. They won their State Age Division on the weekend. They played AWESOME (Jo you will love that!!). They won all their games so I have been told! What a great achievement. The coach of this team is also my teams assistant coach and I can tell you that she was over the moon. All the hard work that the team and coach put in has been worth it! I have seen them train - they turn up before their A grade competition game and train and then play against teams that are all older and more experienced than they are so they can get some really good game training in. Our premier league team also came to a training game day to play them 2 times. The poor girls played 4 games in a row to get ready for the State Age Championships, so they really deserve the win. GOOD WORK! Everyone is really chuffed......

Pippies Netta

Another Saturday has gone and with it more games of Netta. I have a daughter playing her first year of Netta and this week was her 5th game. When the team first started they didnt have any idea of what they were doing! We stood them on the court and that is pretty much were they stayed! All they were thinking about was where they were aloud to be!! The other team ran rings around them...... Oh well. Things are slowly changing, they eventually got their first goal last week, so we took them to McDonalds for a special treat.
All the girls are having a really great time and have just started to 'get' the game ( at last us parents are saying!) Its funny, my little one has been at the side of the court since she was 6 weeks old and up until now she really has had no idea.. BUT she made 2 beautiful intersepts this week, and as proud and chuffed as I am, I would have to say that one of these intersepts would easily have been the best on court.
All the kids have worked really hard on 'shadowing' defence and you could really tell. Congratulations to everyone for the great defence on the court.
Also a big congratulations goes to their coach, she has put in alot of time and effort so far with the preparation for training sessions and the games but also the extra 'small' things. She always has a little reward for the girls at the end of the games and training as well as little trophies for most improved and player of the week. You can see in the kids faces how much they appreciate all of these little encouragements! Good work Coach ( I havent said her name as she doesnt know that I have written this.)

NETTA - See Comments for training drills

So what is the difference between Netball and Netta?

Well firstly, there are no winners or losers in fun net as scores are not kept. This is to encourage the participants to have fun and enjoy the sport and want to come back and play. Also the rules and the equipment used have been modified and adapted to the physical and psychological abilities of children aged between 8-10 years of age.

Netta is not aged based, some children playing in a netta team may be 8 years old and others will be 10 years old. This is done as not all children develop at the same rate and some older children wont be able to cope with all the physical and technical demands of Netball. Also younger children who have shown early development and readiness for competative netball can be moved up from Netta to Netball.

Basic differences are :-

• Netball posts are lowered to 2.4m
• Netball is smaller, size 4
• Players must be 1.2m away from attacking player with the ball before defending a pass
• Players are not put out of play for obstruction and contact, the umpire corrects the play, then they continue on with the game
• 4 x 10 minute quarters
• Shuffling of feet is allowed when catching the ball to maintain balance
• Up to 6 seconds to hold onto the ball before passing
• Up to 12 children in a team, at the end of each quarter all positions on court needs to be changed so that all children get to play all positions
• No scores kept so that emphasis is on fun rather than competitiveness.

FUN NET

It is designed for kids (boys and girls) aged 5 to 7 years of age. Fun Net is designed to develop the children's basic motor skills, balance, co-ordination, footwork and ball handling in fun environment. The kids join Fun Net as individuals and the emphasis is on participation and fun. (hence the name fun net!) They learn skills through activities and games that are netball orientated and are actively encouraged to have lots of fun!

Why Fun Net?

The sport of netball is a challenging game that involves many skills and has a lot of rules! Children need to be introduced to the sport gradually through age appropriate games and activities. The children can then develop their motor skills and confidence as they participate in a non competitive environment.
With the basic netball skills that they learn through Fun Net they will progress to Netta with more confidence and a better understanding of some of the basic skill that are required in the game of netball.

All About Netball.

Hi everyone,
I have decided to start a blog on netball and what it is all about. I hope that every one who is into netball can get something out of this. And good luck to all in their season of netball.