Tough draw for Gisborne

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

The Gisborne Netball Centre representative team had a tough start to the Netball NZ Open Championships in Dunedin on Tuesday but it was not unexpected.

The week-long tournament features 19 provincial teams split into five pools.

Gisborne is in a pool alongside Christchurch Red, Counties Manukau Cluster, Howick Pakuranga and Taranaki.

Gisborne lost 52-40 to Counties Manukau Cluster in their opening game on Tuesday morning and were beaten 57-25 by Christchurch Red in the afternoon.

“We had a pretty tough draw to start the tournament — coming up against powerful Counties Manukau and the Christchurch team, who finished pretty high up in the tournament last year,” GNC manager Allisa Hall said.

“The team were in good spirits despite those opening losses. In their words, they are absolutely vibing on the experience down there.”

In their only game yesterday, Gisborne were beaten 46-37 by Howick Pakuranga late in the afternoon.

Gisborne faced Taranaki at 10am today in their final pool play game.

Following pool play the teams split into the top eight, middle eight and bottom three .

The top and middle eights faced quarterfinals, semifinals and playoffs.

The bottom three were to be joined by a Dunedin development side for a round-robin to decide placings.

The Gisborne team are Tania Adams, Marcia Beale, Ella Hurley, Grace Kaihe-Tahuri, Atareta Mangu, Karyn Matiaha, Bronya McMenamin, captain Paku-Jane Skudder and Princess Tomoana. Ingrid Brown is coach, Charnelle Rutene assistant coach and Challise Rutene manager.

The NZ Open champs — a replacement for the under-19 and u17 nationals — were to be first held in 2020 but because of the ongoing effects of Covid-19 the inaugural event was not held until last year.

It proved highly successful, with a mixture of experienced players and up-and-coming talent featuring across many of the teams.

The top sides are vying for the New Zealand Cup, which dates back to 1926. Among the other trophies are the Gisborne Cup.

In 1956, Gisborne Mayor Harry Barker was so impressed with the appearance of teams in the street parade at the national champs held in Gisborne that he asked to donate a trophy presented for team uniform and general demeanour.

Netball NZ president Tina Karaitiana, of Gisborne, said: “Domestic events such as the open are a crucial step on the high-performance netball pathway.

“It is where future representatives are identified and their dreams to transition to other competitions such as the Synergy Hair Netball League, ANZ Premiership and on to the pinnacle stage and into the black dress — Silver Ferns honours — are realised.”