NZSS Programme
The NCZ NZSS development programme is an identification and development programme that provides fitness testing, feedback, sport science education and some programme support for promising secondary school players during the off season. It is designed to prepare participants for the NNZ Development Camp and the upcoming season.
The programme starts in October with tournament play where the most promising players are identified for further development; this is followed by an Advanced Camp for those identified players; and ends with a January camp led by Netball New Zealand.
The tournament play is led by the participating Centres with implementation support from NCZ; the Advanced Camp is led by NCZ; and the January camp is implemented by Netball New Zealand.
The programme commences with Centre’s, in consultation with NCZ, selecting and preparing teams to compete in cross-Zone tournaments. At these tournaments NCZ selectors work with Centre selectors to decide which athletes might participate in the Advanced Camp.
The final list of athletes to be invited to the Advanced Camp will be decided by the NCZ Head of Selectors. These athletes will be provided strength & conditioning programmes and expert coaching to help them prepare for the national development camp in January. All participating athletes will receive a completed NCZ player profile detailing their achievement against the NCZ performance standards.
This is a de-centralised programme and NCZ contact with these athletes is limited. Therefore, Centres are strongly encouraged to add their support and encouragement to these young athletes during their preparation phase.
Successful NZSS athletes will be required to pay the full costs of any ongoing camps or competitions, should they be selected for the final NNZ NZSS team. Centres are encouraged to work closely with any athletes who do win national selection to ensure they can meet the additional financial obligations that will arise.
Performance Programmes in Centres
Recognising the ongoing success of Netball Wellington Centre’s performance programme, NCZ will continue to pursue the implementation of similar programmes in the other lead Centres, Netball Manawatu, Netball Taranaki and Netball Hawkes Bay. We will support all four of our lead Centres to create and/or continue their own high performance programmes, which identify and develop their best young players. NCZ will help each lead Centre to achieve this by providing advice, guidance, regular visits and guest coaches when available.
Each performance programme will be tailored to be fit for purpose for the respective Centre taking advantage of the fact that each one has excellent leaders to provide support to their Centre programmes:
- Netball Wellington Centre: Sandra Edge
- Netball Hawkes Bay: Charissa Barham and Irene van Dyk
- Netball Taranaki: Jaqua Pori-Makea-Simpson
- Netball Manawatu: Ashleigh Kate Araroa and Renee Matoe
This programme is an opportunity to grow the capacity of our lead Centres to implement performance programmes that will in turn underpin the Zone performance programme and grow our cohort of emerging, talented secondary school players.
We will also support the smaller Centres with their performance programmes, upon request in a bespoke, mutually beneficial way that makes the most effective and efficient use of our combined resources.
Centre Age-grade Representative Programmes
NCZ recognises that Centres are largely staffed by volunteers and so additional work in the performance player development area is difficult to achieve. Therefore, NCZ’s approach in this space will be to continue to support all Centres with specific resources to help them enhance their current and ongoing representative team programmes. In working in this way Centres will be contributing to the Zone’s overarching performance objectives without adding tasks to their already crowded calendars.
Centre representative team programmes are short campaigns that commence in April with trials and end with the national or pinnacle tournament event sometime in July.
NCZ will provide all Centres with a set of resources that could be used in conjunction with their representative teams. These resources include the following –
- Sample annual calendar detailing what events should take place and when
- NCZ age appropriate player profile
- NCZ age appropriate player training diary
- Sample selection policy
- Sample trial team list schedule to record player positions and quarters
- Simple analysis tool
- Simple campaign evaluation tool
- ‘Slack’ contact tool
There is no expectation that Centres will use all or any of these tools. They are simply made available for Centre use to help in the development of performance players.
NCZ will provide ongoing support around these tools for all Centres through the Emerging Talent Manager, who supports our Centres to assess, feedback and develop their athletes and coaches. We achieve this by regularly and consistently deploying our Emerging Talent Manager into Centres; by developing, reviewing, updating and distributing appropriate resources annually and by inducting Centre volunteers and staff in how to use them; and by deploying our Emerging Talent Manager into tournaments to support and mentor coaches as they are coaching.
We also work with Centres to provide ongoing support for those athletes who are identified to progress further along the performance pathway. We engage with Centres to help them support their identified athletes, with the goal of getting those athletes selected into NNZ programmes.
We will support Centre representative team managers too, with tailored development opportunities to address identified manager needs.