Another excellent report from our man on the ground, CountDavid. Thanks again!

The Netball Hall at Loughborough University - home of Loughborough Lightning - hosted a capacity plus crowd - to witness their first return fixture in the Netball Super League.

Having lost a winnable match at Bath University at the beginning of the season, Lightning had a point to prove in front of their home crowd. Team Bath had an unbeaten record to protect and both teams were at full strength with international players returned from the recent Jamaican tour.

The first quarter saw Bath start strongly and soon had an advantage showing on the score board. A rally brought Lightning back into contention but still behind at the whistle (11-12).

Play resumed at a slightly increased pace. England and Loughborough captain, Olivia Murphy, was effectively playing well forward as a a second WA. Linking effectively with Karen Atkinson - the official WA - the two formed a very effective feed to the shooting circle. Alex Astle was on target, avoiding the defences of Geva Mentor and Billy Bowers, helping take the second quarter 14-12, to bring Lightning ahead at 25-24 at half time.

Team Bath lost their way in the 3rd quarter and looked washed out. Changes by coach Crabtree were not effective. The pace of play rose considerable in the final quarter with electric 1-2 passes between Olivia Murphy and Karen Atkinson geting the ball into the circle for Alex Astle and Lisa Stephenson to convert.

Meanwhile at the back of the court, Ama Agbeze and Laura Brown contained the Bath assault. Jade Clark worked relentlessly and intercepted well.

The full time whistle left a score of 54-43 on the board - the home crowd were well pleased with a magnificent display of attacking netball. Lightning had struck and Bath had lost their unbeaten record.

TeamBath Starting Seven:
GS: Rachel Dunn; GA: Pamela Cookey WA: Tamsin Greenway C: Jo Binns WD: Clare Elsley; GD: Billy Bowers; GK: Geva Mentor

Substitutes: Half time: Bianca Modeste at WD for Elsley; Three-quarter \r\ntime: Asha Tett for Cookey at GA; Jess Garland for Binns at C.

Quarter scores (TeamBath first): 12-11, 24-25, 32-37, 43-51

You can see more photos from this match at the excellent www.fotoccompli.com.

This excellent report just in of a close Netball Superleague match from CountDavid, our man at the match.

Just one point separated Brunel and Loughborough in the league table before the match started, so a win was important for both teams: Loughborough wanted to maintain their position and Brunel wanting to gain 2nd place. The scene is set for a great match.

Both teams started off cautiously with the score balancing evenly for the first 7 or 8 minutes. Loughborough then powered away to take the first quarter 14-7.

Brunel?s coach Denise Holland made a change putting Katie Nicols on as Centre. That, together with a team chat made the difference to Brunel who worked hard to recover. A 12-7 quarter to Brunel brought them back to within 2 at half time.

(21-19)

Strong defensive work co-ordinated by Sonia Mkoloma and athletic work by Chioma Ezeogu at WA were the highlights. Chioma?s high takes of ball and great interceptions spurred the Brunel team on.

Brunel took the 3rd quarter 8-14 to pull in front to 33-29.

Both teams came out firing on all cylinders for the final quarter, with Loughborough recovering to bring the score level at 38 all with about 3 minutes to go. However they could not hold on and again great mid court work by Chioma kept Brunel in the game and they pulled forward to take the game 44-39

It was difficult to select a player of the match as so many were terrific. The mid court was particularly active and fast for both sides, but for me it was probably Chioma.

You can see more photos from the match at www.fotoccompli.com.

There’s now a new section of the site devoted to Netball at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games 2006 - check it out.

Currently the section contains just the essentials for every Netball fan - the teams, the fixtures and the venues. We’re going to keep adding detail and more features to this part of the site, and if you want to stay on top of our updates, why not Sign up for our newsletter?

There’s a wealth of essential netball and commonwealth games related information there, so why not check it out? When you’ve made your appraisal, jump to our forums and tell us what you think. Enjoy!

Well the news tips articles have been up for some time now, so this announcement is a bit overdue. Anyway, we’ve put up articles on improving your pivot step, perfecting your shoulder pass, and mastering your bounce passing techniques.

As always, if you like these particular netball articles, tell us. If you think they’re useless and can’t stand them, then we’d like to know about that as well. You should know by now how to contact us.

Thanks, and enjoy!

The ladies in the England Netball team have good reason to be pleased with themselves. Not only have they convincingly beaten South Africa over a three-game series, but they also demonstrated that England are one of the favourites going into the Commonwealth games next year.

The second game of the series, played on 26 November 2005 in Cape Town, resulted in an easy win, 65-40, against the Boks. The start of the game was delayed by more than three hours as officials looked for sections of the floor that had apparently been “misplaced”. This is a sure entry into the “Unbelievable reasons for delaying a Netball Match” book which we plan to release soon (contact us for details).

While the indispensable Rachel Dunn had an excellent game once again, Karen Atkinson was named player of the match.

The third and final match (30th November 2005), and the last between the sides before the Commonwealths, saw England storm to a comfortable 58-38 win. The score line even more emphatic than in previous matches, and Marg Caldow (Coach) was handsomely rewarded for some successful decisions regarding the starting line-up.

The players really shone, with many sections of the game seeing complete dominance by England in all areas of the court. Deserving special mention, though, is the previously injured Amanda Newton, who clearly enjoyed being back on the international scene, her play showing that her 22 month recovery has done nothing but sharpen her netball skills.

English netball has seen a bit of a surge in popularity lately; the National Super League’s semi-well-publicised opening and more TV coverage having a lot to do with this.

England’s first game in a three-test series against the Boks was played at Johannesburg, South Africa on Wednesday.

The game was very close up until the fourth quarter when Rachel Dunn and the omnipotent Olivia Murphy helped the English team to pull away and win in impressive fashion.

The series of test matches leading up to the Commonwealth were always going to be very important for team confidence, and winning this first match in style certainly gives the England netball team the start they needed.

We’ve added two articles for a new series I’m planning - tips on improving your netball technique. The two articles cover the very basics of basic netball techniques, namely shooting and chest passes. Please take a look and tell me what you think.

We’ve added a nice little feature piece on the History of Netball. It’s a brief (and ultimately readable) overview of the events leading up to and contributing to the ascension of netball to its current position as one of the world’s favourite sports. We hope you enjoy it!

As always, any comment would be more than welcome.

We’ve added a small feature to the Netball Rules section which shows, in diagrammatic and tabular form the rules which limit players’ movements on court.

Pretty basic stuff, I’m sure, but nonetheless take a look and see what you think.

Welcome

Hello everyone and welcome! As you’ve probably seen over the last few days NetballFun has been experiencing what can only be described as a massive overhaul.

We’re still playing around with the site’s design a little bit, and we’re putting together some whizzy contraptions behind the scenes to ensure we keep our finger on the pulse. These are coming along nicely, and although they won’t make much difference to you, the viewer, they’ll mean that site updates can be made quickly and efficiently. (meaning there will be more of them). Watch this space!

The Design

We’ve changed the look and feel of the site. We’re looking, hopefully, for a clean looking and easy to use site that facilitates use. The current design is unlikely to stay for long, and if you’ve any comments than shoot them this way.

Content

We’re going to start filling the pages with tons of useful information. From netball fitness, to funny netball stories, to match reports. If you’ve got anything that you’d like contribute then, once again, tell us. Authors will get full credit!

The Forums

The forums are temporarily down. That’s the bad news. The good news is that this is only temporary. We’re looking for volunteers to help moderate what we hope will become a busy forum. volunteer if you fancy have a go at it and helping out. [Edit - the forums are now out of action for the forseeable future. If you want them back them let us know!]

Lastly

We hope you have a great time here. Browse away, contribute, and add to the discussions in the forums. See you back again soon!