2022-23 Premier League Netball Season So Far

We’ve had a great start to the season and are delighted that we have been able to bring through and give more opportunities to young players coming through. The National Premier League offers an amazing opportunity for these youngsters to play alongside Netball Super League stars and gain invaluable experience.  

Look out for Emily Pawlett, Alice McGeachy and Harriet Jones who are playing alongside the likes of Kerry Almond, Taylor McKevitt and Amy Clinton. 

We’ve been lucky to have a lot of local fixtures so far, but we are on the road this weekend for the long trip to Southampton to play Weston Park Blades who are showing well so far, placed third in the league.  

After the delight at winning Div 2 last season, we were apprehensive/ unsure of what was ahead in Div 1 this season. We were excited to open our season at Oldham. Playing the strongest club in the country on their home turf was a fitting way to kick things off for us. Our young inexperience squad (mainly teenagers) did themselves proud despite getting a good beating. That opening game experience inspired us to up our game in the next three matches. Beating Turnford at home was a real ‘turning’ point for us. Playing Academy was another great experience for our young squad. Playing against hugely respected Superleague & England players was great to watch. 

The last two months was somewhat different to what we had planned for. We had planned for three parts to the season:  

1: Find our feet and hopefully win some matches 

2: Take stock and review what we needed to do to compete in Div 1.  

3: Focus on securing Prem 1 status so we can build on our Year 1 experience. 

Here we are at the end of November, and we have significantly exceeded our base-level expectations in Part 1 & Part 2 of the season. Sitting 3rd in the table with six wins has forced us to re-evaluate our expectations and plans for Part 3 of our season. OUR squad and OUR coaching team have been superb at coping with the challenges we have faced to date. The youngsters have excelled and everyone has risen to the challenges so far. Our senior players have been great role models.  

Special mention to Sam – our Head coach, senior player and GA – and Jo (her assistant) who have been a central part of our club’s journey from ‘struggling’ in East Mids Regional Div 2 to competing with the best in the country in Nat Prem 1. OUR journey is a whole club effort. Thank you to everyone who has supported us so far.  

Eight games. Three wins. Five defeats. It’s been a tough but exciting start to the 2022/2023 season. Our opening fixture against Academy meant we had to hit the ground running. The star-studded, London-based team were clinical in possession and despite managing to get within one goal, we were unable to take the lead and, in the end, lost 56-50.   

In spite of the loss, we took a lot from the game and have continued to build throughout the season. We have had some dominant performances, such as our 51-39 win against Turnford, and also some nail-biters. Our home game against New Cambell had a thrilling end, with the Away side going on a late run and only an intercept in the dying seconds of the game allowing us to clinch the win (much to the delight of our super home support).   

Weston Park Blades prides itself on developing the next generation, and this season has been no different. We have already had numerous players from our Division 1 and even U19s team make their debut for the Prem side. Whilst introducing some new names to the league, we have also celebrated our players who haven’t been able to represent us because they have been called up for international duty, such as Jayda Pechova, who featured for England at the Fast5 All Stars Championship in October – well done, Jayda!  

With ten more fixtures left to go and plenty of points up for grabs, it’s all still to play for! 

What a roller coaster of a start for Tameside this season. Exciting wins, and narrow defeats have made for some nail-biting games. We have welcomed back many players who we were without last season through injury or other commitments, and embedded new players who have brought depth and a different style to the club. We have also had a number of debutants who have thrived in the challenging environment. 

Keeping updated with other games around the country via England Netball TV has been compelling and great growth and promotion for the league. 

We are looking forward to building on the start to attempt to better results in the returning fixtures in the second half of the season. 

Bury’s young squad has shown plenty of battling qualities over the opening quarter of the season. New head coach Eliza Morgan got off to the perfect start with a closely fought five–goal lead at Leeds. Another back-and-forth game saw Bury edge out Hucclecote, again away from home, following on from a heavy defeat to local rivals Oldham. With injury and availability causing selection headaches, shooting star Anya Williams made her debut and continued to have a positive impact throughout the early rounds, alongside fellow u16 national champions Katie Rayner and Faye Roscoe. At times they could match opponents such as highflyers Turnford and Academy, but Eliza Morgan was left bemoaning dips in concentration and inconsistency in delivering the gameplan. With ten games still to come, Bury is looking to rediscover their winning ways.  

Having been newly promoted to Prem 2, I think we can be pretty pleased with how we have started the season – although there’s a long way to go! So far it’s been great for us to experience playing against difference styles, new teams, a variety of umpires and having the opportunity to line up against some Super League players.  

Our partnership with the University of Exeter has been invaluable in supporting us to compete at this level and for our University players within the squad, the exposure at Prem 2 benefits the University netball 1st team playing in BUCS Premier South.  

As a squad our strength is definitely how we play together as team, and we hope to continue to improve our performances this season.  

We’re learning every game, enjoying the challenge and proud to be representing Devon in Prem.  

This year we have got a young and exciting squad with huge potential. The start of the season hasn’t gone exactly how we would have liked in terms of score lines and points on the board which is something we will be looking to change as we head into our next few games.   

What has been pleasing to see is the general development of our performances. We have been narrowing score lines and putting together some really good passages of play. For us now, it is about putting together a full 60 min performance. A highlight so far has been our narrow win over Oaksway at home. That was a really competitive and physical game which we were able to see out and take the win by two goals.   

I am excited to see what we can do in the second half of the season, each game we are gelling as a side and learning more about each other’s style of play. We will definitely be looking to climb up a few places in the table!  

It has been a story of narrow defeats for Oaksway so far this season, with a series of tantalising losses by only a couple of goals. However, the home-grown squad are displaying great connections, this is probably due to 9 of their 12 usual squad players progressing through the ranks at the club from junior level to senior – something Oaksway is incredibly proud of.   

Captain Hollie Linighan stated in our recent North-East derby against Grangetown: “The game could have gone either way, right until the last 30 seconds. The home support from a packed Brierton Sports Centre was unreal!” The home venue proves to be a challenging arena for travelling teams.  

Coaches Lucy Clough and Beverly Linighan praised their players for showing excellent fight, commitment and squad ethos. They are looking forward to the rest of the season with their group of both experienced and very young players, with some under the age of 18.   

Being one of the three teams promoted into Prem 3, we were excited to start the season on a high. However, we were also nervous as we had new players to introduce to the team coming back from a long summer break. 

Our Prem 3 season opener was against Leyton, which we won 56-30. We started off a little slow, but the change of our twin duo Jemma and Jasmine Nightingale made a dynamic difference. The final quarter was a strong finish from both teams always pushing till the end with a final score of 56-30. 

Feeling more confident with our combinations, we then faced our first away game against Ryland. Off the back of last week’s win, we were on a high and ready to go with the starting seven line up including the introduction of Surrey Storm’s Leah Middleton who made her Prem debut. The game was incredibly close with both teams battling hard, however, in the final quarter we found our second wind and won 57-36. 

Skipping ahead to Round 8 v BCV Billericay, we were now riding on a whopping seven from seven wins and this allowed our confidence to grow as the rounds went on. BCV Billericay put up a strong fight, especially in the second quarter, however with our slick feeds and fantastic shooting from Regan Peters and Libby Burgess (our repeated Player of the Match winners) the match ended 70-40, seeing us remain top the table and undefeated.