Performance: A tense draw for our Premier squad, leaving us just in the top half of the table! Another big win for Northern, leaving us top with an amazing goal difference. Netball Nights had a narrow loss by one goal, but are still near the top of the table. In juniors, our U14&U16 Regional squads continued their unbeaten runs on the #roadtonationals. Our U16B had their first match in the WY league and a convincing win. Our U12C had a narrow loss, but they are a year young, so learning lots for the future.  Our HiFive had their first victory, and looked as though they thoroughly enjoyed the experience! Our really young athletes were training with Mark at Beckett, whilst Becky was with the HiFIve Squad, great to see the youngsters training, and thanks to those who came to support Prem and Northern today. Well done everyone. A very busy schedule for next weekend, so let’s have everyone training hard during the week. Good luck to our athletes working their way through injuries. Be patient, follow advice and stay in touch.

Representative: NPL U21 competition got underway this weekend, with us having players in Lightning and Wasps. NPL U19 starts next weekend, and we have athletes in Lightning and Yorkshire, so good luck to all. Amazing to see Nat H on court for the Roses again and a good Quad series for them. The build up to the Commonwealth Games will begin in earnest now and NSL starts in less than two weeks! We have players to follow in Lightning, Wasps, Bath and Team North. Plenty of netball to watch, either by going live or on Sky.
 
Schools stuff: It was a rainy and windy day for the Yorkshire Regional Qualifier for School Nationals, so not great for the athletes, officials or spectators! Nevertheless it was great to see so many of our athletes representing their schools, and some of our senior players in school coaching roles! Congratulations to our athletes in sides going through to Nationals: U19 Queen Ethelburga’s and GSAL; U16 GSAL and Woodhouse Grove; U14 GSAL and Harrogate Grammar. Good luck to everyone competing at School Nationals on 17 March. We also have athletes who are representing their schools in the last stages of the Independent Schools Competition, and the Association of Colleges competition, both prestigious tournaments.
 
Parent Helper meeting: We had a good parent helper meeting last week, thanks to all those who attended and offered help! I will be in touch! In the meantime, a more general plea for parents to train as coaches and umpires so that we have more capacity for the busy slots!
 
Upcoming workshops : There are some top class Rhinos opportunities coming up, stuff for a range of ages: some U13 prestige workshops with great coaching; a master class with Anna; and the usual residential boot camp that is so beneficial before the start of next season. See the Website under camps and workshops http://www.leedsrhinosnetball.co.uk  for stuff that is good to complement Club/school/pathway training.

Leeds Athletic Netball Club
www.leedsathleticnetballclub.org.uk
@LeedsAthleticNC

Another busy weekend, as those of you who follow on Twitter and FaceBook will have seen. Wins for a number of teams over the weekend, including U14 and 16 Regional, Senior Regional and U12A. That is the best way to keep in touch with results and photos! Netball Nights also won again during the week.
We have had some great learning from our young teams, especially where some players were making their debut. We have lots of teams in U12 and one in U11, with a lot of the U12 girls “playing up” an age group, so these young athletes are doing great! We have also had some good learning from individual performances (eg with representative matches with Rhinos, Yorkshire, school etc) again this week. Best wishes to our coaches who haven’t been feeling well, but who have carried on regardless!  

The England performance was inspiring, great to see Nat H in the mix at this Quad series, in this all important Commonwealth Games season, and with the World Cup next year.

Other Roses Academy news this week.....congratulations to Alice Harvey (who joined us from Chevrons this year) who has been selected for Netball Europe U17 Championships in Dublin in March. Also, well done to Annie James, who was selected as a reserve.

Quick reminder about the Parent Helper meeting, this coming Thursday, 6:30pm GSAL, in the Dance Studio upstairs near the Balcony. This is both for existing helpers and new helpers! Let’s see as many people there as possible, as it is also a good way to find out who is who and meet other parents.

Busy one again next weekend with our top senior teams, Premier League and Northern League, returning to fixtures. For anyone not playing next Sunday, especially our youngsters, you can have a feast of watching good netball! Our Northern League game is against Gateshead at 11am, and our Premier league game is at home, at 12:30pm, both at Leeds Beckett, and both should be in the Arena with seats! A team trip with your fellow athletes is great experience, ordering pizzas to eat whilst you watch!

Leeds Athletic Netball Club
www.leedsathleticnetballclub.org.uk
@LeedsAthleticNC

Performance – Juniors
Great win for Netball Nights this week to take them third in the league, but with a game in hand! Well done all! Click Here for the up to league table

Well done to all our youngsters, mainly in HiFive, but also some playing in U12, taking to the Court for the first time for Leeds Athletic today. Hope you enjoyed the games and will carry on working hard to improve even more.  
Both our junior regional squads won as they aim to qualify for nationals. U16 had the biggest win of the day with 77-12, U14 had a good win as well 59-6.

In WY Junior League U14B won 34-18 today as they start their campaign to do well in the top division. Two of our U12s squads played against each other (with lots of U11s also playing up) U12B vs U12C, with the U12B coming out victorious, but happy coaches with good play from both squads.  After an issue with entering our U16B team into the WY League earlier this week, it looks as though that has now been sorted and we will be able to enter a team, which is really important for some of our U15 athletes.

Please note that in the WY Junior Netball League parents are not allowed courtside, as set out in the league rules and communications. We realise that at some venues this isn’t great, but it is a league ruling that umpires are being encouraged to implement and therefore we need to comply.

Performance – Seniors
Our WY Seniors and Senior Regional didn’t have games this weekend. Next weekend both these squads have games, but Northern and Premier League have no matches. This week at Senior Training on Thursday, it is match play against University of Leeds side. Ruth, Lauren and Molly will sort rotations. Emma H and Sarah D are umpiring.
Northern League squad remain unbeaten as we are now well past the half way mark of the season, winning today away at Concord 35-71! Their goal difference is amazing at 311! Huge well done to all the players who have been in this squad.  CLICK HERE for the up to date league table

Premier League
The squad secured their second victory of 2018, with an important away win at Oaksway 54-70, with Leeds only leading by 5 going into the last quarter. This result means we are now 5th and need a strong finish! CLICK HERE for the up to date League Table 
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Parent Helper Meeting

Please put the parent helper meeting in your diaries, 6:30pm Thursday 25th January, GSAL dance studio upstairs at the sports hall. We’re particularly interested in encouraging new umpires, and coaches, as well as Admin/back room and matchday support. Encouraging more helpers, especially from parents of younger athletes, is all part of the continuous development of the Club and making it sustainable.
 
Injury and recovery
Inevitably we have a few athletes recovering and returning from injury and a couple of recent injuries. We wish those athletes the best of luck, stay in touch whilst you’re out, take advice when you’re injured and aim for a steady and sustained recovery.
 
In other netball!

•  Manchester Thunder are keen we take club trips to watch their games, so if any coach/parent is interested in taking a group, let me know and I will give you a contact.
• Good to see some of our athletes showing their skill at the Yorkshire Coaching conference this weekend.
• Some of our athletes and coaches are supporting mini netball with Leeds Rhinos, which they have enjoyed!
• A group of our athletes had a day out watching the Battle of the Midlands tri-tournament with LBoro, Stars and Wasps on Saturday. Great to have their support for some of our current and past players who were appearing in both the Wasps and the LBoro sides, plus of course Anna and Maggie coaching at LBoro.  
• Lots of our players will be in school fixtures and some will be building towards important nationals competitions. Good luck in those and especially whilst athletes are juggling academic stuff as well eg GCSE/A’Level preparation and university applications.  
• An important Roses Academy Camp next week, especially for U17 athletes aiming to compete at Netball Europe in March. We have current Academy athletes attending (Laura, Alice, Anya, Georgia, Nat, Annie, Chloe) and new trialists attending from our club as well, so good luck to everyone!

 
And finally.....
Big thanks to our coaches and admin helpers for all that they do on match day, and a lot more behind the scenes.  Remember to join our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter.

Performance - Good week last week. Wins across the board in Netball Nights, Northern, Prem, Senior Regional and WY Senior. Fewer senior fixtures this coming weekend, just Northern and Prem, both away. There are Regional Junior games and some WY Junior fixtures. We finally got the fixtures for the WY Junior games yesterday. Unfortunately we have been told just this week that we are unable to enter an U16 Team into the WY Junior League, which is disappointing, but we are in discussions to work that through and will keep those affected up to date. Fingers crossed we will be able to resolve these issues.

Good luck and well done - to all our athletes who’ve been playing Rhinos, Yorkshire, County, Loughborough and NSL friendlies. Good luck to those at England Roses Academy Camp next weekend, including those trialling for the upcoming Netball Europe U17 competition. Also, good luck to those in school fixtures, especially those aiming to qualify for any of the national finals.

Helper meeting - I mentioned a meeting for potential additional helpers at the club. This will be on Thursday 25th January at 6:30pm at GSAL in the dance studio up stairs on the balcony. We’d love to see as many of you as possible, both current and future helpers! We have all sorts of jobs available, whether you fancy on Court coaching or especially umpiring, or back room Admin, finance, communications, or club development and safeguarding! We have “match day” jobs available, regular jobs and ad hoc jobs. We need a social secretary to fill Tim's shoes!! Something for everyone, all to make our athletes have as many good opportunities as possible!

Social media good practice - England Netball have some good guidance available, especially for U16s, but also useful more generally. You can access the guidance here, we would recommend all athletes have a quick read.https://www.englandnetball.co.uk/app/uploads/2016/03/Social-Media-Policy-u16-.pdf
We will be asking U14 and U16s to complete the following form having discussed it with parents, which is good practice guidance.
https://www.englandnetball.co.uk/app/uploads/2016/03/Social-Media-Agreement-u16-editable-pdf.pdf
​

​Happy New Year and here is to a great second half of the season for our athletes and for the Club.

Off we go again. Straight into training later this week and a busy weekend of senior and junior regional fixtures this coming weekend, including a road trip to Middlesex for the Premier League side! Thank you to the coaches and admin help who have been busy planning sessions and sorting registrations etc over the holiday period!

As a Club, in this half of the season, we will be hoping for strong finishes across all the senior leagues, with top in at least Northern and WY. We will be hoping that both our U14 and U16 squads qualify for Nationals, with very strong finishes for the B squads in each of those age groups. We will be hoping that U12A qualify for the Regional tournament, with strong finishes for the B & C teams. And we want a great start to loving netball for our U11 squads who start their matches in January! Sunday morning training for those not yet eligible for matches will be important to get them ready for next season!

For our individual athletes, we will have Roses appearances and Roses National Academy appearances, a few players appearing in NSL fixtures, with lots of athletes representing franchises/Yorkshire/Rhinos in matches as well. As usual, we also wish everyone the best of luck in their school/college competitions at all ages! And we wish our coaches the best of luck as well with all that they are doing to develop their coaching skills and impact.

​The main message in this update is about an upcoming meeting for those who would like more involvement in running the Club, to help behind the scenes or on court. Whilst we are confident that we are running one of the best netball clubs in England in terms of performance, quality of coaching, player development, communications, club development etc, we are also keen to get new ideas and fresh enthusiasm – especially from parents of our younger athletes! The meeting date will be confirmed soon, it will be a Thursday night during January, at GSAL, probably about 6:30pm. A number of people offered their help when the athletes applied for trials, so we will particularly be asking you guys to get involved! Thanks in advance.

It is now only 7 months until our first Club trip to Australia, where we are taking 24 lucky athletes to see the best of netball that the world has to offer and to inspire them to achieve their ambitions. Our trip will see us visit Brisbane, Gold Coast, AIS at Canberra, Sydney and Manly, whilst we will play 6 matches, do lots of training and sightseeing! Exciting times as we get into the more detailed planning of the day to day itinerary! We hope this will be the first of many trips to Australia!

Let’s hope that 2018 is successful for all our athletes individually and in their squads, fingers crossed for a speedy recovery for those athletes injured and that we have as few injuries as possible! It is certainly going to be a busy one!

Leeds Athletic Netball Club
www.leedsathleticnetballclub.org.uk
@LeedsAthleticNC