With many players from both the Mavericks and Team Bath, this UK Netball Superleague tie was going to tell a story about the strength deep in the squad for both teams. And tell a tale it did: both missed key players, but still managed to put up quite the fight! This was the first game in the season for both teams - let’s hope the Superleague hasn’t peaked too soon!

Bath gave Superleague debuts to Sasha Corbin and Kirsty Delves (who came on in the third quarter). A baptism of fire, perhaps, but certain a great game on which to cut their teeth. The Mavericks were sporting a swanky new kit… would it help them to the win, though?

First Quarter

Starting squads:

The game was played in Hertfordshire in front of a full sell-out crowd; the players on international duty (and those unfortunate enough to be injured) were present to cheer on their teams before heading off to the World Championships in New Zealand.

A scrappy first quarter saw neither team reach their potential, and the 7-7 scoreline belies the number of mistakes made by the teams. Both must have felt fortunate that the other could not capitalise, but the turnovers kept occurring. Both sides put up decent defence, however, and it was in the attackers’ handling that they were left wanting.

Second Quarter

The teams remained the same for the second quarter, Bath’s Fletcher and Beckford-Chambers swapping places was the only alteration.

The Mavericks started this quarter with a renewed sense of urgency; Team Bath only managed 2 goals in the first 10 minutes. The Mavericks maintained a tight hold on Bath and were 9 goals to 4 up in the quarter. Fletcher sustained an injury during the second half and had to be replaced with Natalie Seaton coming on at Centre (meaning Serena Guthrie was moved to WD and Francis moved around to GD).

Third Quarter

The Mavericks, happy with how the match had gone so far, again remained with the same teams, and Bath swapping Monique Wood for Kirsty Delves and playing her at GA, moving Asha Tett to GS.

The half-time talk obviously did some good as Bath surged forward. The match was still end-to-end with absolutely no let-up from either team; Team Bath took the quarter 7-6.

Fourth Quarter

The only change for the final quarter was Lucy Cadge’s entry in place of Ann-Marie Muller for the Mavericks.

Bath continued their attack with the Mavericks managing to sneak a few in. 17 goals were scored in the quarter with Bath taking an impressive 10. This wasn’t enough to make up for the earlier misses, however, and the final score was 29-28 to the Mavericks.

Phew!

Plenty to improve for both teams, and the rematch at Team Bath’s court later in the season will be a spectacle, we’re sure.

In what appears to have been a thriller from start to finish, last night the Mavericks beat Team Bath 29 points to 28 in both teams’ first match of the season. This defeat ends a 24-match unbeaten run for this season’s favourites.

This is a most interesting start to the season for both teams and the Mavericks must be confident of their chances after bringing down the giants. Well done girls!

Match report to follow.

Injured Laura Langman passed her first fitness test today - it’s looking like she might be returning to the Silver Ferns’ squad just in time for the World Championships. Great news for New Zealand, not so great for her opponents! Langman, a vital link player in Centre Court, is confident that she will return to play in the eight-day world championships.

If Laura does not make final fitness tests - and the squad need only be announced on the day of the first match - then there are a number of other world class players ready to take her place, including former vice captain Temepara George. The loss would be a blow for the Silver Ferns, however, as Langman is a 28-test veteran at the top of her game.

We’ve added another Netball Super League team profile to the site - read all about the Mavericks if anyone has a decent chance to topple Team Bath from their seemingly invincible grip on the Super League World it’s the Mavericks. Both teams’ first match of the season is tonight - what a start to the season!

Good luck girls.

The results of yesterday’s matches, the first of the season, are now in:

Brunel will be disappointed with their loss to Team Northumbria, Loughborough will be relieved that there was no upset in their game, and Leeds should be very pleased with their extremely strong showing against the Northern Thunder.

There are three Netball Superleague games being played out today to mark the start of the season.

Watch out for the Celtic Dragons against the Loughborough Lightning, Bunel Hurricanes against Team Northumbria, and Leeds Carnegie against Northern Thunder. Matches start at 3pm, 3pm and 4pm respectively. Favourites Team Bath start their campaign on Monday away to the Mavericks.

Good luck to all the girls; finally we’re getting the long-awaited Netball Superleague season to a start! Come on!

Following on from, and adding to, our new section on the UK Netball Superleague, we present to you three new pages: profiles of Brunel Hurricanes, Loughborough Lightning and the favourites Team Bath.

Hopefully there’s something for everyone in there, including the squads for this season’s Superleague, but if you’d like to see anything else then please let us know.

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.]

It is a fact that netball has long been a competitive sport in the UK. It was first brought over from the USA where it was designed to be an alternative to basketball for women in 1891 (see our section on the History of Netball for more information). It didn’t take long for its popularity to filter across the Atlantic and by the 1920s, young girls everywhere were playing it. Most women today will remember playing it at school because it has been a staple of physical education programs since the 1920s. However, up until recently there was no competitive competition that encompassed the whole of the UK. There were many local leagues in force, but it took until 2005, over 100 years after it was first invented, for a nationwide league to come into being.

Plans were announced on Tuesday 4th October 2005 by England Netball to launch its very own Super League. England Netball formulated plans to bring about the league as a result of the national side being ranked 4th in the world. There is no doubt that this was an achievement, but England Netball didn’t think that the national side had gone as far as they could go. Countries like Australia made sure that their girls experienced competition week in and week out in preparation for international fixtures, but our English and Welsh netball players only had local competition, which was not good enough in terms of the standard and rigours of international competition.

The Super League was definitely designed to raise the level of quality in England, and so far it has done what it set out to achieve. The national squad won the bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in 2006 after beating Jamaica. The overall performance was phenomenal and demonstrated that weekly competition had definitely helped to improve the standard of the side, and that was after only two full months of competition!

The Super League began in late October 2005 with eight teams in total playing weekly fixtures, both home and away. The teams are Team Bath, Brunel Hurricanes, Loughborough Lightening, Mavericks, Team Northumbria, Northern Thunder, Celtic Dragons and Leeds Met Carnegie. The inaugural season proved to be extremely popular and thus it was decided that the league would continue. It is now coming to the start of the second season of the Super League and it is proving to be as popular as ever and no doubt the England team will continue to go from strength to strength as a result.