Netball NZ introduced an Under-17 men’s category - and Dannevirke was right there

The Dannevirke Under-17 men's netball team ready to play.

For the first time in history, Netball New Zealand introduced an Under-17 men’s category into the U18s national competition, which this year was held in Hamilton.

When I first heard of this new tournament, I was immediately keen to try and get a Dannevirke team involved. Straight away I put out a message to the players in our local Tama Toa (Dannevirke High School) team to see how many of them would make the age cut and be keen to give this a go. I also approached some others who I knew had played before and might be keen.

Great mid-court height.

Spectacular shots at goal.

Many of these young men have played netball for a few years now and have shown a lot of talent in the sport. They were up for the challenge and with the support of the Dannevirke Netball Centre committee, we pursued forming a team to represent our centre.

Experienced netballers Rocky Hape-Taite and Philamena Beale took on the role of coaching them.

In the build-up to the nationals, they played a feature match at the Viking tournament against an invitational team and also travelled up to Taradale High School to take on its boy’s side, beating them by a convincing 10 goals.

More great shooting.

And even more great shooting.

The team had two games a day for the first three days at nationals, with just one game on the final day. In the round robin play, DNC won three of its six games, heading into play-offs in fourth position. In the playoffs, they faced Invercargill (who they had narrowly beaten the day before). Unfortunately, it didn’t go their way this time, going down 27-24 after a nail-biting, goal-for-goal game.

It is pretty cool to think that our little town was part of the inaugural Netball New Zealand Boy’s Nationals and hopefully we can continue fielding teams for this event.