Narrabri Netball Association announces decisions regarding winter season and rep involvement

The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed another community sport victim with Narrabri Netball Association recently announcing that its 2020 winter season was cancelled and its representative sides would not participate in the 2020 junior or senior state titles tournaments.

The NNA committee met last Tuesday when it discussed the current restrictions and latest announcements and what they meant for netball in Narrabri.

“It is with an extremely heavy heart that we announce that there will be no winter netball in Narrabri at this stage,” a Narrabri Netball Association statement said on Wednesday.

“We will continue to monitor the easing of restrictions and reassess our decision as they occur.

“We do apologise to all of our members but feel that the current restrictions are unmanageable for our association.

“We are still planning on playing Netball later in the year.

“For all our representative players we have also made the devastating decision that we will not be attending either junior or senior state titles.

“The committee feels that involvement in 2020 will not be possible due to the lack of certainty, considerable financial burden and multitude of restrictions around training, carnivals and competitions.”

Narrabri Netball Association secretary Tracey Tomlinson told The Courier that the decision to cancel the winter season was a tough one.

“It wasn’t easy to call the season off,” Tomlinson said.

“We know we run the risk of losing some kids to other sports but it just can’t happen.

“We could make it happen for a few but not everyone and how do we decide who it can happen for and who it can’t.

“We would also have to have an appointed COVID-19 officer which is a big responsibility.”

Tomlinson also said that there would be a winter competition next year, but before then the association was determined to host a strong twilight mixed netball comp later this year.

“There will definitely be a winter competition again in 2021 and at this stage we are aiming for a twilight comp at the end of this year,” Tomlinson said.

“We haven’t made any definite plans about that yet but at this stage we will be looking at making that a longer competition.”

“There will be no rep netball either. That was the easier decision, it’s just logistically a nightmare,” Tomlinson said regarding NNA’s involvement in junior and senior state titles.

Meanwhile the Narrabri Netball Association has also farewelled a dedicated committee member, coach and player Emma Baumann who is relocating to Queensland for work.

“Emma announced her resignation due to the fact she’s leaving town,” Tomlinson said.

“We are very sad, Emma will definitely leave a big hole that somebody can hopefully fill.”