South Adelaide Football Club, Woods Panthers Netball Club strike up partnership to boost growth
A southern football club and a Premier League netball club have joined forces in a bid to grow both sports in the region. READ which clubs and how the partnership will work here.
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Premier League netball club Woods Panthers will now be known as South Adelaide after joining forces with the Panthers SANFL club.
Woods, which have been based at Blackwood for the past two decades, have struck up a partnership with South Adelaide Football Club in a bid to grow both sports in the south of Adelaide.
It is also hoped the partnership will boost the chances of gaining funding from the Federal and State Governments as well as Onkaparinga Council to upgrade The Noarlunga base which the football club currently calls home.
South Adelaide Netball Club President Rohan Davison-Bennett said the partnership had been about 18 months in the making and he was pleased by it being finally ticked off.
“This is an incredibly exciting opportunity,” Davidson-Bennett said.
“This is an opportunity for us to re-establish our brand and to come clearly as the contending Premier League (netball) club in the south.
“We’ve been based at Blackwood for 21 years and we will always have a connection with Blackwood and the Hills.
“But the priority for us is to develop ourselves as the southern Premier League club and to be assertive in the way we market ourselves out of that area.
“It was about capitalising on some cross-code training and the (shared) use of facilities down south.
“It’s also an opportunity for us to start really building on our shared plan.”
South Adelaide Netball Club ended its 2020 Premier League netball campaign in a loss against Garville on Monday night and played for the final time as Woods Panthers.
South Adelaide football Club, meanwhile, has been fighting to have women’s changerooms installed at their Lovelock Drive base for the past three years following the introduction of its SANFLW team.
Chief executive Neill Sharpe believed joining forces with the netballers would help improve the club’s standing in the local community.
“There’s short term benefits and long term ones for us,” Sharpe said.
“We can grow our brand in the community down south.
“We are both in state league competitions so we think there’s some opportunities of combining there from a player development and coaching point of view.
“And a long-term view is with the facilities down at Flinders University Stadium … hopefully getting female changerooms and some netball courts down there.”
Netballer Eilish McKay was proud to be involved in a new era with South Adelaide Football Club.
“It’s about building a bigger presence for us in the south and building a larger club culture,” McKay, who captains the Premier League side, said.
“It also means more cross-coding training and coaching ideas as I think each sport can share coaching strategies and values.”