Netball Action

This past weekend we decided it was about time we experienced the largest women's professional sport in Australia - netball. We talked Jeff and Leslie into joining us for a Sunday afternoon game at the Vodafone Arena, Melbourne Vixens verses the Adelaide Thunderbirds.

Before we headed to the game we met for a beautiful Turkish breakfast, and then it was time to cheer! We went in with a vague idea of the game. It seems that most Australians have played the game informally at some point in their youth, but few actually follow it as a professional sport so it is a bit difficult to relay the rules. The basics as we understand them: netball is a passing game, once a player receives the ball and sets their two feet they cannot move further, each position is required to stay within a certain portion of the court so players never get clustered into one spot, it is a non-contact sport and defenders are required to maintain a certain distance between themselves and the offense, and the uniforms consist of cute little skirts. While watching we gathered that: once the shooter has the ball there is apparently no way to stop the shot, if someone tries to stop the shot it results in a whistle and the shooter gets to try the shot again while the defenders step back, at times it is make-it take-it (but only sometimes and we couldn't figure out what determined that), and most importantly the refs wear the cute little skirts too! Most impressive though was how fast the ball could move down the court - it was a basketball teacher's dream with how fast and accurately these ladies could dish the ball around the court. Overall we had a great time and enjoyed our first taste of the biggest, fastest, funnest women's sport in Australia.