A WELCOME addition to the SFNL board this year is highly respected Ouyen United netballer Kyra Nathan.
The Kangas’ A-grade playing coach has wasted no time in making plans for a new Sunraysia junior netball academy to begin in 2025.
It would essentially focus on 13 to 15-year-olds, with a squad of about 30 to be separate from the Sunraysia junior representative teams, where registrations are at an all-time high of 150 for three teams this year.
“I saw a big pathway gap in our region, and an exposure to high-performance netball,” Nathan said.
“I’d seen how successful Dennis Mitchell had been in setting up the junior football academy here, and it’s time we gave our top junior netballers a pathway to higher levels of competition.
“We have so many knowledgeable and skilful netballers in our league. Why are we not utilising them?”
She said that Wentworth star Christie Becker, who runs the local Fast Feet program, was “on board” to help drive the new program next year.
“Christie has a really good netball brain,” Nathan said.
“Also, I’ve got some friends who are current and former Diamonds (national team) players. We’ll be looking to get them involved in the academy program here.”
She said a likely big hurdle to getting the program up and running was a lack of sponsorship for netball.
“But we need to do this, before we lose our best young girls to football, where there is strong backing from the AFL, soccer or basketball,” Nathan said.
