Former Australian coach discusses state of NZ netball
Morning Report
Former Australian Diamonds coach Lisa Alexander says it is in netball’s interests globally that New Zealand has a strong domestic league.
Players still have not received any news from Netball New Zealand about whether the ANZ Premiership will survive next year, and no broadcast deal is in place.
On Wednesday, Silver Fern Amelia Walmsley told RNZ that players would be forced to look overseas or leave netball altogether if Netball NZ did not quickly come up with a plan.
Alexander coached the Diamonds for 102 Tests during a period where the fierce rivals played out many tight battles, including the one goal loss to the Silver Ferns in the 2019 World Cup final.
She told Morning Report it was important that New Zealand had a flourishing league on this side of Tasman.
“Not just for New Zealand netball, which has such rich history in success over such a long time, it’s also vital for global netball.
“World Netball should be very concerned about this as well, that one of our most successful country’s in netball having this situation is frankly very upsetting. I understand the importance of us, Australia, having such a great neighbour but also a great competitor on the world level and it really is vital.”
Alexander said while the Suncorp Super League (SSN) in Australia was not in the precarious situation New Zealand was, it did face increasing competition from other sports.
“It’s very tough, we’ve just had news yesterday of the NRL (National Rugby League) signing a huge billion dollar TV rights for seven years and it’s an extremely competitive market in Australia for that dollar.”
Reports from Australia say the record-breaking seven-year $5.3 billion broadcast rights deal will help underpin the NRLW women’s push for a longer season and a larger roster of teams.
“Netball has signed their broadcast deal for next year [in Australia] but there’s not a lot of detail around it. And the other concern is that we have not also finalised our player agreements here. So our players are also dangling in terms of … they have no detail, no one is on contract, no one’s been retained, so it’s a flux situation over here as well.”
Silver Fern Amelia Walmsley.
Jeremy Ward/Photosport
Alexander said young women needed to see a pathway to a professional athlete life.
“The other sport that’s really gone ahead in Australia is women’s basketball, the WNBA is going gangbusters over in the United States, and I know here in Australia it’s very competitive for athletes between netball and basketball as well.
“There are so many more avenues for women’s sport these days, and you can’t blame young people for looking to different sports.”
Alexander said while there would be opportunities for players at the Silver Ferns level to play in the SSN, the next tier of players might increasingly start looking at feeder competitions in Australia.
“We have a very competitive State league situation here as well in all the States, so it could be that some of the New Zealand players will have opportunities there.”
Alexander said it was tough for Silver Ferns players who were preparing to compete at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow later this month.
“But I’m very confident, knowing my Kiwi friends over there, I think the competition will be going ahead, it’s just that the players are obviously not going to get remunerated as they have been in the past.
“The message that I’m getting, it is quite despairing, it’s worrying … people have got mortgages … it’s a very finely balanced situation, they’ve very upset and concerned.”