Netball at the Wiltshire Youth Games

Sunday 9th July

Zaya Morris-Capener, Netball Development Co-ordinator for Wiltshire, tells NSW how the event went.

What a great day, it was fantastic. The Netball was held in the rather warm indoor courts up at the University! There were 140 players involved with the netball, either in the Junior High 5 or Secondary 7 a-side.

We had 10 school teams competing in mixed High 5 Netball & 5 yr7/8 district squads competing in the 7 a-side tournament, who had been selected through a number of training sessions by local coaches.

I can’t emphasis enough how good it was to see so many children getting involved and enjoying Netball, along with the continuous cheering they were receiving from enthusiastic supporters along the back lines _. There was some great talent and ability shown on the day and I hope they stick with netball and continue to build on Wiltshire’s Talent within Netball.

The High 5 tournament was extremely close with both the girls and boys showing some great netball skills and awareness on court. In the end there was only 1 point between First and Second place! So you can see how much the children really put into their matches. In Third Place were St Mary’s from North Wilts, in Second place were St Sampson’s also from North Wilts and the Youth Games High 5 Netball Champions 2006 are Southbroom Junior School from Kennet, congratulations to you all!

Over on the 7 a-side court it was great to see the motivation between team mates and team managers as they had only been playing together for a few weeks. I got to see a few of the teams at their trials and training sessions before the games and it was amazing to see the progress they all made in such a short space of time and for this to be so evident on the day, well done. In third place were Swindon, in Second Place were Salisbury and the Youth Games Netball Champions 2006 are Kennet who were unbeaten all day, congratulations!

There was also a Fair Play award that was given to the team with the best attitude towards the umpire, their opposition and each other. It was very hard to decide the winners as all the teams were extremely well behaved and courteous towards each other, however there were two teams that seemed to stand out due to their honestly and friendliness towards others. In the High 5 tournament this award was given to Holbrook Junior School from West Wilts and in the Secondary Tournament it was given to the West Wilts squad. Though a big thank you to everyone for making it such an enjoyable event and I hope that fun approach and fair play attitude stays with you through your sporting life!

Finally a huge thank you and well done to Tracy Watt for organising the Netball event along with the County Sports Partnership, and to all the volunteers, scorers, umpires, Coaches, teachers and of course players that helped to make the day such a success.