A new era may have arrived in Hawke’s Bay netball with regular Super Club championship finalists All In and Otane both missing the 2024 showdown to be played at the Pettigrew Green Arena, Taradale, on Friday night.
Unbeaten in 11 games in this year’s competition, which was expanded from eight to 12 teams, defending champions All In suffered their first loss in 12 games when they were beaten 52-50 by the Napier Girls’ High School Senior A team in one semi-final last week.
Otane, in successive finals for over a decade and winners of the title 13 times, including three consecutively in 2020-2022, were eliminated in the other semi-final, beaten 40-30 by near century-old club Hastings High School Old Girls.
All In and Otane were the top two sides going into the semifinals.
The final will be played between NGHS, who won the title in 2018 and 2019, and HHSOG, a club that last won the title in 2000, starting at 7.45pm in the Rodney Green Foundation Arena in Taradale.
Hawke’s Bay Netball operations manager Kathryn Stonehouse hopes a crowd of 200 could be present, despite the challenge of competing for fans with the Hawke’s Bay Tui and Magpies rugby double-header at McLean Park, Napier, also on Friday night.
“Who knows ?” she said, hopeful the appearance of the school team would attract school pupils and family support.
The semifinal results were “definitely a couple of surprises’, but it wasn’t that the favourites didn’t play well, she said.
“It was just the others were better on the night,” she said. “It’s very exciting.”
The new B section final will be between Havelock North and a second HHSOG team, starting at 6.15pm, both having had comfortable wins in their semi-finals.
It could be a particularly big year for the Napier GHS schools A team, which on Tuesday secured their school’s 11th Unison Hawke’s Bay Super Secondary Schools title in 12 years, beating Iona College Premier 35-28 in the final.
Hastings GHS Senior A beat Karamu High School 35-28 in the Division 2 final, and Iona College beat Sacred Heart Napier 35-29 in the Division 3 final.
Earlier this month the men’s title was claimed by All In with a 43-35 win over Toki Toa, the defending champion club that had won the first Hawke’s Bay men’s title in 2019, and on Wednesday night Porangahau sealed the Central Hawke’s Bay Premier Division 1 title with a 26-21 win over Central Sports.
It’s also a big year for netball legend Irene van Dyk and her Hawke’s Bay team, as they return to national competition level, at the Open championships in Auckland on September 10-14.
Last year Hawke’s Bay made an early decision not to go to the 2023 national tournament in Dunedin, with players unavailable because of other commitments, and van Dyk has since concentrated on putting together the best possible squad.
The team heads to Wellington at the weekend for pre-tournament games.