U9 Netball | Building a love of the sport early on

Rebecca Haley Director of EAL and U9 netball coach

 

Looking back on this year’s netball season, it’s clear to see that we have built a strong foundation upon which there will no doubt be plenty more years of fantastic seasons, games, teams and individual players. This season was special because we started out with a fantastic total of 16 year 4 (U9) girls attending try-outs. To put this into some sort of perspective, during my first year at Wellington we did not even have enough girls trying out to make a single senior school netball team. Now, we have reached the point where the sport is so well promoted and supported that we could field multiple teams of U9s. In the end, we only created a single team for this season, but we didn’t want to turn anyone away so we put everyone on weekly rotation. In this setup, everyone was given the chance to play regularly, while continually training and supporting the squad. To me, this is such a vital part of teaching any kind of sport, particularly to younger children. Playing in fixtures is great, winning them is even better, but promoting a deep and abiding love of sport is the best and most important part of the process. Once our U9 team was successfully trialled and assembled, it quickly became evident that we had some incredibly strong players. Admittedly, the girls endured something of a shaky start to the season in the Shanghai League. However, as they refined their skills, game knowledge and tactics, they bonded as a team and became a force to be reckoned with. I’m very pleased and proud to say that they ended up as this year’s Shanghai League champions – an incredible achievement for their very first season of playing netball competitively!  

Looking ahead

As I said, winning is great but there are even more exciting elements to consider here. What pleases me greatly is that we now have a group of young girls who have developed a love of netball, and wherever they go in future years, either here at Wellington or beyond, they can further explore and enjoy this path.   At this point, I must say that a large part of the team’s success and enjoyment they’ve had throughout the season is due to the impact of their ‘netball big sisters’. Firstly, two of our year 12s, Amber and Chloe, were invaluable in offering their help as coaches as well as coming to all of the U9 matches. They were exceptionally caring and committed, as they helped with organising drills, discussing tactics, encouraging and coaching from the sidelines during games, and plenty more besides. We were also very lucky to have similar help on various occasions from Stefania, Sophie, Scarlett and Francesca, all of whom gave up time willingly, even on evenings and weekends.   All of the girls were so generous with their time and patience; this is something that has impressed me greatly and I’m very grateful to them for everything they’ve done. Not only have they helped the U9s improve their game, what’s truly great to see is seniors being so invested in helping their younger peers develop their skills and sporting abilities. They all had so much fun this season, and hopefully they will be enthused to keep at it while encouraging their friends to give netball a try next season. This is how we grow a tradition of steadily, solidly improving teams each year. Already I’m excited to see how many of them try out next January!