Netball grapples with new scoring rules

Players in the Suncorp Super Netball league in Australia where She Cranes captain Peace Proscovia plies her trade with the Sunshine Lightning Coast woke up to a new super shot rule addition.

In netball, any shot within the shooting line is worth one point or goal but the biggest Netball league in the world has decided to take it a notch higher by giving teams an opportunity to play for more points with one shot.

The league is giving an extra goal to whoever makes a shot from 1.9 meters or more within the shooting circle in the final five minutes in each quarter.

This new development favours players with long shooting acumen and if all goes well it could also affect the game in other places in the world.

The new change has not been received well because it has the ability to change an even contest since one team can take their shots from afar and blow out a game that could have gone to the wire.

"Australia are always number one in testing things although the guidelines we have received are not in line with that we shall see what happens," Uganda Netball Federation (UNF) president Susan Anek said.

UNF has received guidelines which will mostly affect the national team ahead of the Commonwealth Games 2022.

"We have been in lockdown and there has been a revision of guidelines on how to play. Significantly the qualification phase for Commonwealth Games has been pushed to November 2021," Anek said.

This should give countries enough time to prepare after a Corona virus-ridden 2020. There are so many other revisions that are expected and ranking will also be affected.

The current style of ranking has been put on hold until next year when things have stabilised.