We’ve added a new section on the Netball Superleague (look, there! Over on the right!). There’s not much in it at the moment, but there is a complete Netball Superleague Fixture List for the 2007-2008 season which we hope you will find useful.

As always your comments are welcomed.

I bet you thought we’d gone for good, didn’t you? Well here we are! We really have been doing something this time, and you’re going to see it over the next few days.

This is advance notice of the fact that we’re switching the servers on which Netball Fun lives in a few hours. Hopefully the technical guys in the background have got everything sorted out and there should be little or no downtime for the site; you might experience some issues with images loading and the page seemingly being messed up, but don’t worry. For your reference, you are currently seeing the new version of the site. Congratulations!

[EDIT: There are a few minor formatting issues, but we’re sorting them! If you spot anything at all that doesn’t look right, please tell us.]

There has been very little activity on this site of late. Rest assured though, we have not been taking a holiday.

We’ll be back with regular updates very shortly. In addition, we’re preparing a brand new look for the site and some new features for you.

We’ll be concentrating initially on the UK netball scene, but we’ll certainly be featuring important news from around the globe. Naturally, we’ll still have our very popular tips and techniques articles (which are being expanded as we speak).

We hope you can join us soon at the new look site soon!

The England Netball ladies made their way through to the semi-finals today following an impressive victory over South Africa. This is a relief after their loss to a strong performance from current world champions New Zealand yesterday Goal Shooter Louisa Brownfield managed a very consistent 47 from 53.

Captain Olivia Murphy said

We have some exciting young players. I don’t think we’ve ever had as many exuberant young players. Louisa (Brownfield) is growing in confidence and hardly missed anything.

England’s next game is against Australia on Saturday; Australia finished second in their group behind Australia with a 107-19 demolition of Singapore 19-107 today.

England made it three wins from three at the Melbourne Commonwealths 2006 with a 78-18 thrashing of a spirited St Vincent and the Grenadines. This win puts England on top of their group, ahead of New Zealand only on points difference; tomorrow (Wednesday 22nd March) will see the long awaited clash between the two.

Once again, all of England’s players got some valuable court time, and experience. Louisa Brownfield (Mavericks) was the game’s top-scorer with 26 goals from 30 attempts. England play New Zealand on Wednesday (22 March) and South Africa on Thursday (23 March).

England’s captain, Olivia Murphy, said:

We wanted to start strongly and get a good score in the first quarter, and give all of our players some Commonwealth Games experience. We’re building all the time for our games against New Zealand and South Africa, so we wanted to improve with each game … We’ve got a day without a game tomorrow and then we will need to improve again against New Zealand.

We’re progressing nicely, but we now need to step-up a couple of levels against New Zealand. We’re looking forward to the challenge of playing the number one team in the world.

The past three games provided some essential match experience for some of England’s more green players, but now they have two crunch matches that will really tell a story.

England’s netballers began their quest for Commonwealth Games medals with a victory over Malawi in their pool A match at Melbourne’s State Netball Centre, winning 63-47.

England made it look difficult at times, particularly so in the second half, and England’s coach Marg Caldow knows they’ll have to find some better form before they face slightly tougher opposition in the form of New Zealand and South Africa next week:

It was a bit patchy, but it was what I expected really. Malawi are extremely unorthodox and play very differently to most teams.

said Caldow.

England established their superiority early and led20-11 after the first quarter. Dunn netted 13 goals from 16 attempts, while Cookey madde her mark with seven goals.

England went into the half time break leading 36-24 and struggled to extend their lead in the third quarter which ended 50-36. The victory was never in serious doubt although Malawi all-but matched England in the final quarter as Caldow gave all 12 of her squad important match practice. Dunn ended the game top scorer with 23 goals. Cookey got 13 and 21-year-old Louisa Brownfield from Thundersley in Essex, who came on for Dunn in the second half, netted 19.

England’s next match is against Fiji tomorrow (Saturday 18 March) at 13.00 Melbourne time.

Bath retained their lead this weekend with a rout of the Celtic Dragons. This won’t be good morale for the Welsh national team going into the Commonwealth Games, with many of their players being bettered by their Bath oppoite numbers.Loughborough had an impressive win over Leeds Met Carnegie, and Mavericks beat Brunel.

In the one lower-table clash of the weekend, Northern Thunder beat Team Northumbria by a closer-than-close 1 point.

Full Results:

Jamaica have recently confirmed ther 12-strong squad that will compete in the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games.

The line-up is as follows:

Wales have announced their 12-strong squad that will compete in the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

Wales play in Pool B with, among others, Australia.

The line-up is as follows:

TeamBath’s emphatic win over Team Northumbria keeps Bath securely at the top of the Figleaves Superleague table.

But the score, Jan Crabtree claims, doesn’t do Northumbria any justice: “I truly don’t believe that the margin was a true reflection of the match and the way it went”, said Crabtree “They played really well throughout”.

The first quarter ended with TeamBath leading 14-9, and the second saw them extend their lead to 30-18. The scoring really went haywire in the third quarter which ended with Bath storming away with a 50-25 lead.

Bath’s superb performance against a very able Northumbria team shows the depth of the squad (Crabtree made sure everyone on the squad got a game); it also shows the choking defence and searing attack that the team can produce.

An impressive performance by the league leaders, and one which assits in cementing their \r\nclaim for the top place.