Netball season begins

Netball season is back on in Whangarei. Pictured is Whangaruru centre Shawnee Paniona (left) and Marist's Shannon French.

The 2014 netball season has begun, kicking off with premier and premier reserve grading - followed by grading for Intermediate Year 7 and 8 and Senior Club and College teams.

Last night five premier teams played for ranking and six premier reserve teams did the same, with 15 games played in total. For intermediate grading today, there will be 56 games. Each game will be 12 minutes each way with two minutes for halftime, with all teams having two or three games throughout the day. For senior grading, over 90 games will be played. All teams have between two to four games each. Each grading game too has 12 minutes each way with two minutes for halftime.

Grading is carried out over two weekends and then following a two-week break for Easter and school holidays, grading promotion relegation will be held on May 3 where the top two teams in each grade will challenge the bottom two teams of the grade above.

The preliminary round of normal competition across all grades will then commence on May 9. A number of changes to the competition have been made.

The junior competition for players from Year 1-6 will commence on April 12.

The Whangarei Netball Centre (WNC) is also hosting South Canberra netball teams on April 12 along with the ANZ Netball Roadshow.

South Canberra will field two teams and play two games, the first to be played at 1pm against a Year 8-9 team. The second game will be at 3pm against an invitation Year 8 and the Year 9 WNC representative team.

At the roadshow young netballers will get the chance to improve their skills and win a warm-up with Temepara George. There is also a player of the day prize pack.

The roadshow will be on the grass area by the courts.