Super Netball import policy to stay in bid to build dominant league

Netball Australia has confirmed its Super Netball import policy is here to stay.

The eight Super Netball team captains gather for the 2018 season launch in Sydney yesterday. Picture: Getty Images

Netball Australia has confirmed its Super Netball ­import policy is here to stay amid a growing chorus calling for Australia to let its domestic competition become the English Premier League of world netball.

Opinion has varied in the week since England’s stunning Commonwealth Games gold-medal triumph had Diamonds coach Lisa Alexander pointing the finger at Super Netball’s no-restrictions import approach.

But where Alexander said Australia’s heartbreaking one-point loss was “our high-performance system working for another country”, Netball Australia chief executive Marne Fechner felt it was a case of the whole game benefiting from the league’s high quality.

Coupled with commercial factors, Fechner said there were no plans “at this stage” to scale back its rule change allowing clubs an unlimited number of international athletes on their roster — up from the maximum one permitted in the previous ANZ Championship.

“If we were purely looking at it through a high-performance lens we might make different decisions,” Fechner said at yesterday’s Super Netball season launch.

“But we’re not, we’re looking at it from a sport entertainment product about commercial growth, and that’s really important — it’s why this product exists.

“We have to balance the pinnacle of our game being the Diamonds and there’s no question about that — they are top of the mountain in terms of pathway.

“But for us we aim to deliver the world’s best women’s league ... and a really diverse international group of athletes competing in it is good for the game.”

England and Sunshine Coast Lightning goalkeeper Geva Mentor with her gold medal from the Commonwealth Games. Picture: Getty Images

Five of England’s starting seven in the Commonwealth Games final currently ply their trade in Australia, a factor coinciding with England’s first netball gold courtesy of NSW Swifts shooter Helen Housby’s final-second goal.

On the flipside, New Zealand’s absence from the Gold Coast ­podium contributes to evidence of the extent Super Netball is moulding the international game.

Following the break-up of the trans-Tasman arrangement, when the Kiwi teams were sacrificed to make way for three new Australian franchises, New Zealanders playing in Super Netball are barred from representing the Silver Ferns.

Last week Diamonds great Liz Ellis wrote in Players Voice that to cap imports would be “shortsighted” because “it’s critical for the success of world netball”.

Yesterday, England goalkeeper Geva Mentor, also captain of defending premiers Sunshine Coast Lightning, echoed Ellis’s thoughts.

“With soccer the dominant code is the EPL ... you look at the NBA for basketball in America and I think the Suncorp Super Netball is the netball premier league around the world, so you’re obviously going to attract the best players to play in it,” Mentor said.

“That just puts netball in a healthy light.”

AAP