Maitland netball returns to court on Saturday

More than 210 teams across 30 divisions and age groups take to the court from 9am when the under-7s make their debut on the big stage.

“We’re all keen to get started and get into it,” Maitland Netball Association president Kim Starkey said.

“We have started much later but it was about giving people the benefit of the Active Kids Rebate and avoiding clashes with school holidays and Groovin the Moo.

“It would have been a very disrupted start if we had gone earlier and we will be pretty much going straight through to the end of the season with a two-week break for the school holidays at the start of July.

“We’re looking at 30 divisions, from littlies all the way to A-1. We roughly have about 210 teams competing which is about the same as last year.

“The numbers in juniors are very good and of course they can’t wait until Saturday.”

The Bradford Hotel and one of the two Branxton teams from last season have dropped out of A-grade.

However, there will be two Branxton teams again with last season’s A-2 premiers Altitude going up. They will be known at Royal Federal Hotel.

The other promoted team is the A-2 runners up Hinton Hotel.

Starkey said she expected a close A-grade season this year with a number of teams capable of challenging Hills Solicitors and The George Tavern’s recent dominance of the competition.

“I think this year it will be quite even and the competition will be a lot closer,” she said.

“You’ve got a lot of younger ones coming up now who are more experienced and competitive.

“It will be interesting to see who is in the top four at the end of the year, it could be anyone.”

Starkey returns to the top grade as one of two experienced players guiding the young Royal Federal side.

“Six of them are in the under-17 rep team so they are a quite young team.

“We kicked off with the group in A-2 last year and won the title and they are excited about moving up.”

\