Netball: Call for tighter discipline in rules review

Netball New Zealand are keen to see the international body tighten up on ill discipline when the rules are reviewed at next year's world championships.

The International Federation of Netball Associations (IFNA) review the rules every eight years. Each country is required to put forward their submissions by June 30.

Netball New Zealand, who have led the way in past rule changes, started gathering feedback from franchises, regions, coaches and elite players last year, then formed a group of players, coaches and umpires to put together New Zealand's submission.

Netball New Zealand's high-performance manager, Tracey Fear, said a free-flowing game with minimum whistle remained the objective, but one of the big things the organisation wanted to see improved was discipline.

Under the present system a player is first penalised. If repetitive infringing occurs the umpire can advance the penalty, which does not apply in the shooting circle. The umpire can then warn the player, then suspend the player, then order off the player for the rest of the game.

Netball New Zealand are not looking to change that, but would like to see each step better acknowledged.

"At the warning stage it would be very clear that that player had been warned, whereas at the moment it is not," Fear said.

"There would be a hand signal to indicate the player had been warned. It would be deemed to be made by both umpires, time would be called, and it would be quite a big thing.

"If that warning had no impact and the umpire wanted to suspend that player, it would be through a yellow card being shown.

"If that player comes back on and continues to infringe, and she is ordered off, that would be done with a red card."

At the moment the length of the suspension is at the discretion of the umpires, and is usually one or two goals. Netball New Zealand would like to see a specific number designated.

In their proposal, a suspended player could be replaced by a bench player, whereas a player who had been ordered off could not.

Proposed rule changes include:

* The introduction of official timeouts. In each match teams would be allowed two timeouts of 1 minute. Injury breaks would be reduced from 2 minutes to 30 seconds.

* Allowing penalty passes to be taken before the offending player is back alongside.

* Letting teams shoot for goal when the opposition is offside in the circle.

* Speeding up the time between scoring and centre pass-off by allowing the centre to take the pass-off with only one foot in the centre circle.

* Better acknowledgment of the discipline system by the use of carding.