Netball: Southby slams tight test schedule

Silver Ferns head coach Janine Southby. Photo / Getty Images

Janine Southby has called for netball bosses to address the tight scheduling of international games, claiming the current programme reduces the team to "survival mode" for much of the season.

Southby, in her first season in charge of the Ferns, had just three days in camp with her new line-up ahead of the Quad Series, which wraps up in Melbourne today with their third match in seven days.

Following today's series decider against Australia, the Ferns will head home for two days' rest, before reassembling in Nelson for the opening test against Jamaica. The Ferns will meet the visitors three times in six days.

When factoring in travel time and recovery, Southby said it left little time to fine-tune their game style.

"You can't do much specific training in that time and you sort of get into a bit of survival mode more than anything else, and I guess that's the feedback I will be giving -- to say, well, actually we need more time in a series," she said.

"I understand in [the events management] department, they're dealing with lots of restrictions but what we need to work on is how do we get time together beforehand, because that's critical and we're lacking that at the moment."

Despite the challenges it poses, Southby believes the tight turnaround between each of the Quad Series games will serve her side well when it comes to the major tournaments in 2018 and 2019.

"You go from one style to another to another, and you have to give absolute time to each of those styles, but the reality is you don't have a lot of time. So the hope is by the time of the Comm Games and World Cup, we have got used to doing that all the time."