Netball Satellite netball competitions starts after four month delay

Netball Taranaki's Mother Earth futureFERNS competitions started this week.

After nearly a four-month delay, Netball Taranaki's Mother Earth futureFERNS netball competitions commenced this week.

Courts in New Plymouth, Waitara, Inglewood, Stratford and Hawera will be packed with players from Year 1-8 playing for the first time this year.

In addition, a social competition was held on Monday night in Stratford, with Youth, Senior and Premier competition gets back under way from Thursday night after a two-week break. A total of nearly 390 netball teams will be in action this week.

Netball Taranaki and Sport Taranaki worked towards forming a Taranaki community sport 'return to play' guidelines, which mapped out agreed season windows, games administrator Pia Bailey-Nowell says.

"We wanted to give our players the best possible opportunity to participate in netball and are pleased with the winter window agreed on by the codes involved."

Throughout the Covid-19 period, Netball Taranaki were in contact with clubs, schools and stakeholders regarding dates and plans for the season.

"All our stakeholders were understanding during the uncertain period. We thank them for their patience and they're really excited to have netball back in Taranaki," she says.

Some futureFERNS competitions started earlier this week in New Plymouth and Inglewood before the bulk of teams start on Saturday morning around Taranaki.

Satellite matches start at this Saturday at 9am with the season due to wrap up on Saturday, September 26 with a grand finals day held at the TSB Stadium.