Netball: Time to end lopsided games

Norma Plummer. Photo / Getty Images

Another week of lopsided pool-play results at the world netball championships has seen calls for the tournament format to be overhauled grow even louder.

The closest any side came to New Zealand during pool-play was 52-goals, while the other top four sides - Australia, Jamaica and England - were similarly dominant in their pools.

The demoralising scores are likely to continue in today's quarter-final matches with Northern Ireland, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa and Malawi expected to be out of their depth against the "big four".

Four years ago, after her side demolished the Cook Islands 90-22 in the quarter-finals in Auckland, Australian coach Norma Plummer demanded change.

She said such gaps in the quarter-finals weren't doing the international game any good, and only exposed the gulf between the haves and the have-nots of world netball.

She reiterated her concerns about the format in the lead-up to this week's tournament in Singapore, and said to win a world title, teams should have to beat all of the top sides.

Plummer suggested the draw should be structured in tiers, where the top-eight ranked teams all play one another, while the bottom eight play off against one another for a separate prize.

"At worlds in 2007, we didn't play Jamaica and New Zealand didn't get to play England, yet England had beaten the Ferns during the year. So I think you've got to play all your top teams, because we're not like soccer that has so many European countries that are all up against each other all the time. We really need to see the best on the best at the world championships," she said.

Former Silver Ferns coach Yvonne Willering backs Plummer and said although a tiered system has its faults, it is still better than the alternative.

"The only hard thing about it is you're going to end up playing someone twice, and that's something you want to avoid as well, but you can't because everyone wants a final," she said

Several of the lower ranked nations may also be uncomfortable with such a move, as it would see eight countries shut out of the opportunity to win the crown. Many believe at a world championships, every team should have a chance at winning the title, no matter how slim that chance.

Netball New Zealand chief executive Raelene Castle, who is also on the board of the International Federation of Netball Associations, said the format of the world championships was one of the things up for discussion at last weekend's IFNA congress.