There are own goals in netball after all

The Wellington Phoenix and the Auckland Blues must love NZ Netball right now.  You think we’ve got issues; have you seen what’s happening at NZ Netball?

You could argue that no sport in New Zealand at school level has had a more privileged position than netball.  For boys there has always been rugby, but there has also been football, basketball and cricket options.  At girls only schools in particular the options have been netball, netball or netball.

Things are changing quickly in womens sport.  Those sports above, as well as hockey, have become a real focus in terms of their national bodies in terms of promoting the female side of their sport.

So now netball has real competition, and all of this at a time when the national team is at an all-time low.  They have announced a review into how the sport is run, and it would appear that needs to extend to how to deal with trophies.

Apparently when you win an international trophy you don’t actually win it at all.  The utter arrogance of it all.

And how we laughed at the New York Yacht Club for all those years.

Apparently the Taini Jamison Trophy is a “perpetual onshore trophy”.  You really couldn’t make this up.  The miserable nature of the arrogance is quite something.

“We got a little framed New Zealand plaque, and it wasn’t even a plaque that had any writing to say what we received this for in terms of the competition. It was just normal memorabilia, and I don’t think it was sufficient,”

The lack of forward thinking in NZ Netball’s calls is starting to develop its own pattern.

Banning Laura Langman from playing for the Silver Ferns for playing in a superior league had some All Blacks based logic behind it at the time.  But it was wrong, and you would hope they will learn from that.

Pulling out of the Trans-Tasman series due to a reluctance to trim an NZ franchise or two (Super Rugby style) was stubborn and was always the wrong idea.

This incident is simple miserable, and means that the Taini Jamison Trophy will now become a laughing stock.  What a great way to remember a great of the sport.

When a debacle like this goes on the question is often is this the hand of evil or just incompetence.

This is New Zealand netball so it’s mainly the latter.