However, Bennett told Newstalk ZB\u2019s Heather du Plessis Allan Drive that Patterson\u2019s email was unusual because they would usually have future certainty by this point in the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve always worked season to season, but it is a tricky situation. Normally now I would be working on player contracting. That can\u2019t happen when we don\u2019t have that certainty for the competition next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The player contracts are tied to collective bargaining between NNZ and the NZNPA. Players Association boss Pippa Moore confirmed to the Herald the process was underway.<\/p>\n
De Bruin told Newstalk ZB\u2019s Sportstalk with D\u2019Arcy Waldegrave the uncertainty was rough on the athletes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I was a player, I can only imagine that you\u2019ll be panicking because that\u2019s your livelihood and that\u2019s what you love to do. Nobody wants to lose a job and have that uncertainty regardless of what you do for a living. Uncertain times will be really stressful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stars assistant coach Leana de Bruin wants more communication from Netball NZ. Photo \/ Sideline Studios<\/p>\n
De Bruin said the absence of communication from NNZ was the most disappointing thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the lack of information to everyone. But not really uncommon for us coaches, especially. I guess more for the players, this is a very unfamiliar territory.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is very worrying and uncomfortable to feel in limbo. It\u2019s the worst place for anybody to be in, whether it\u2019s the start of some people\u2019s careers, and it\u2019s really sad to see it going this way.<\/p>\n
\u201cLife is all about communication, and people just want them to communicate. If it\u2019s like this, actually just pick up the phone and talk people through it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bennett said she was the only full-time staff member at the Stars, so most already had other work to fall back on.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other roles are very specific to the contract and part-time, but there\u2019s probably another six people that have decent contracts with us.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of them have a lot else going on and always have done. So it\u2019s not completely abnormal for them to finish the contract, go back into their other work and then come back in when the season kicks off again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bennett is keeping faith there will be an ANZ Premiership next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still extremely hopeful because of the strength of our game. People are watching, people are coming, people are playing. So I am hopeful that we can get to a solution, but I\u2019m not unaware that it\u2019s an extremely complex and challenging environment to get that solution as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
NNZ has emailed staff at the Stars, Magic and Tactix about their future.<\/p>\n
Bennett is confident that if an ANZ Premiership gets confirmed for 2027, it will be akin to the current format.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it won\u2019t be too dissimilar because again, people are watching. We\u2019ve got growth in viewership and attendance. There\u2019s nothing wrong with our product. I guess it\u2019s how do we make that commercially viable and who are the broadcast and partners that can help us do that?<\/p>\n
\u201cThey do need to make some hard decisions about the costs they\u2019re running in the meantime. So there is a level of pragmatism there. All the people we have are extremely dedicated and good at what they do. So if we can get them back in when we\u2019re able to do so, hopefully that can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Northern Mystics<\/a>, Central Pulse and Southern Steel are run by their respective netball zones.<\/p>\n The news comes days out from the Silver Ferns<\/a>\u2019 opening Commonwealth Games fixture against hosts Scotland in Glasgow on Saturday.<\/p>\n NNZ has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n Nathan Limm<\/a> has been a journalist with Newstalk ZB and the NZ Herald since 2020. He covered the Netball World Cup in Cape Town in 2023, hosts The Big League Podcast<\/a> and commentates rugby and netball for Gold Sport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patterson earlier said they were still working through what the competition would look like next year. \u201cAt this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[12465,5195,87228,2068,16765,51179,189134,36305,115233,16762,111,139,69,13180,213,1516,5433,13917,6642,1361,165,2846,1961,1529,80],"class_list":["post-538355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-anz","tag-be","tag-cannot","tag-cant","tag-coaches","tag-contracts","tag-emailed","tag-extended","tag-franchises","tag-netball","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-premiership","tag-sports","tag-staff","tag-stage","tag-telling","tag-tells","tag-that","tag-their","tag-them","tag-this","tag-three","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}