Tourney next step towards rep team

A senior Wanganui netball representative team is one step closer to reality, with the Vanda Buttars Memorial Trophy tournament to be contested this Sunday.

Organised for the first time last year with an eye to entering a team in the 2015 Lion Foundation Netball Championships, the union-wide tournament will involve Northern Wanganui, Southern Wanganui and Metropolitan facing off in three games at Springvale Stadium.

Northern, coached by Netball Wanganui development officer Donna Jeffery, will consist of players from Ruapehu, Waiouru, Taihape and Kaiwhaiki.

Trish Antis will coach Southern, with players from Rangitikei, Ratana and the eastern and southern ends of town.

Aaron Mahony will be in charge of the Metropolitan, which includes players from the central city.

Metropolitan were the inaugural winners last year.

As with 2014, Jeffery said the three coaches had been watching premier and senior netball over the last few weeks of the competition before choosing players to trial.

A Wanganui team will be selected from the tournament to enter the national championships.

Last year's national tournament included 14 teams in four pools, in a four-day event starting on September 29.

Christchurch were the winners, followed by North Harbour and Hamilton City.

This year, the tournament will be held at ASB Sport Centre in Wellington, from September 28 to October 2.

The idea to bring back a local representative squad was to fill the gap in the players' pathway to higher honours, which was important after Netball NZ revamped their formats in 2013 by splitting the country into five zones.

Wanganui comes under Central Zone, which includes centre-based representative teams from Year 7 to under-19, the Central Zone under-23 team and the Central Pulse in the ANZ Championship.

Netball Wanganui named their union-wide tournament after the late Vanda Buttars, who was coach of the Wanganui seniors from 1991-97. Her team won the second grade of the nationals in 1995 and played in the first grade among the top provincial teams for the next two years.

Jeffery, like her predecessor Lisa Murphy, was coached and mentored by Buttars and delighted when the coach received the recognition of having the tournament named after her.

In Sunday's tourney at Springvale, Metropolitan play Southern at 9.30am, Metropolitan face Northern at 12.15pm, and Northern meet Southern at 3pm.