With the more favoured teams prevailing, the first day’s play at the 2025 Netball NZ U18 Champs got underway under a cloudless winter’s day at the Netball Waitākere Centre on Monday.
This year, the popular event has welcomed 35 teams in the U18 women’s grade while the U18 men’s grade has highlighted its growing stature to increase from last year’s seven teams to nine.
The 35 teams in the women’s competition have been split into five pools of four teams and three pools of five teams with play on Monday and Tuesday involving all teams playing each other in their respective pools.
With some teams playing just the one game on today’s opening day and others having two games, the main feature was the more fancied teams coming through untroubled. That included North Harbour A, Christchurch Red, Waitākere 1 and 2, Dunedin, Auckland, Wellington Black, Hamilton City A and Tauranga all posting two comfortable wins.
There’s plenty of interest in the next generation of rising talent, with a handful of those on show following in the footsteps of their famous mothers, including India Nash, former Silver Fern Bernice Mene’s daughter turning out for the defending champion Auckland side while sisters Perris and Ruby Hore are playing for the Dunedin team under their head coach mum, Belinda Colling, and her able assistant Villimaina Davu, both having played together in the Silver Ferns.
Also in the talented Dunedin side are Lucy Morrison, daughter of New Zealand Secondary Schools coach and former Silver Fern Jo Morrison and Kiana Brown, daughter of former Silver Fern Jodi Brown.
The men’s grade consists of two pools with all teams playing a round robin in their respective pools over the first two days. Defending champions Waitākere 1, Howick Pakuranga, Dannevirke and Tauranga are the teams to watch in men’s competition.
"All the first day scores have been pretty predictable, just based on the fact that it is the first day of competition and with that the seedings, where the top teams are playing the lower-ranked teams from last year,’’ Netball New Zealand Programs Manager Nicky Cattermoul said.
"It is great that players can test themselves against others from all around the country while also getting the opportunity to play with different people other than their school teams.
"It’s good for their development to play with different people, against different styles and have different coaches than they might have from their school teams, so players are getting exposed to all sorts of different elements.’’
After the completion of pool play on Tuesday, all teams are re-ranked based on position within their respective pool and will then compete in post-pool play ahead of Thursday’s final place play-offs.
Launched in 2021, the NNZ U18 Champs honour former Silver Ferns shooting great Margaret Forsyth, who passed away in 2021, with teams vying for the trophy which bears her name.
For day-to-day progress results and live scoring, click here.