The representative netball season is well underway with the Eurobodalla Representative Carnival recently held on Sunday, April 28.
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Forty-three teams from the Sapphire Coast, Ulladulla, Yass and ACT came together to compete in the carnival, two weeks before the Saturday club competition kicks off in mid-May.
Rep coordinator and coach convenor at Eurobodalla Netball Association Kate Blackmore took some time from her day to speak about the health of netball in the Eurobodalla and the recent rule changes to the game.
As coach convenor, Kate oversees coach development opportunities on the South Coast and works with rep and club coaches, evolving coaching techniques and ensuring this translates to the player.
Kate also coaches the under 17s rep side.
She said netball in the Eurobodalla was looking healthy.
"We have seen a massive increase in our junior numbers this year, which has been great - coming back after COVID was a little concerning for us. But this year they seem to have boosted," she said.
Kate said although team numbers in the senior teams were steady, there had been a decrease in senior players overall. She put this down to a rise in women playing soccer, "the Matilda effect", but also uptake of women's AFL.
Kate has played the game since she was eight, recently retiring due to a shoulder injury. A few surgeries later and now 25, she turned her sights to coaching.
The injury was an impact injury, a result of playing with older players. Kate said the Eurobodalla Netball Association was stringent on their age brackets, ensuring the younger players were not coming up against much bigger players.
They have started a cadets or "senior c" competition to minimise the mixing of younger players with the senior teams.
"We kind of put those [teams in place] for the 16, 17 and 18 years old... who just want to run around and play for fun as opposed to being super competitive in the senior age group teams.
"We put them in a division for that reason as well, so they are not coming up against ladies," she said.
Kate said the summer social competition was "massive", with a number of men playing.
Although men don't tend to play the competitive season in winter, she suspected due to conflicting schedules with other sports, pleasingly there were more boys playing in the junior teams alongside the girls during winter.
"We've had a couple of cracking little boys playing," she said.
On January 1, 2024, a series of rule changes, governed by World Netball, came into effect. It has been part of Eurobodalla Netball Association's job to communicate and implement these across its clubs.
Most notably, the toss up was gone.
A toss up was resorted to when both teams had committed infringements at the same time. Now the ball is awarded to the team that had possession when play was stopped.
It keeps the game flowing and, Kate believes, forces the umpire into correct decisions.
Most significantly in her view, was the allowing of rolling substitutions and the elimination of the short pass.
Again, the change to the substitution rules keeps the game moving, in Kate's view, while the change to the short pass must allow for a defender to have a fair crack at intercepting the ball.
The Eurobodalla Netball Association sits over four clubs in the district at present - Narooma, Moruya Tuross, Peppers (Batemans Bay - juniors only) and Broulee.
To find out more about playing netball in the Eurobodalla visit www.eurobodallana.nsw.communitynetball.com.au/get-involved.
