International Netball Player Inspires King’s Netballers

Our netballers may not be able to physically get to the courts at the moment but through a little imagination and creativity, many of the players are doing their best to still get their Netball fix whilst at home. Our netballers have been involved in a variety of activities so far this year, from technical Zoom Sessions with International Player Bethan Dyke to Virtual Shootout Competitions, you can read all about the latest here:

On Wednesday the King’s Netball players were lucky enough to have Bethan Dyke, Severn Stars and Welsh International Netball player, lead a technical session for them via Zoom. The players were led through a warm-up, activations, ball handling, and conditioning, where the girls were also given some great practices to do at home in their own time, helping them to get ready to dodge and move past their defenders when back on the netball court. After the session, they were given the opportunity to ask whatever questions they wanted to Bethan, where some very good questions were asked. To firstly be coached by Bethan and then to get an insight into the journey Bethan has been on to get to where she is today was great; she even talked about her experiences at the World Cup in Sydney.

Home Shootout Competition

In the first-ever Schools Home Shootout competition, 1^st VII captain Mia Mathewson and LR rising star Emilia D’Adda both agreed to represent King’s. They have had to tailor their usual centre court attacking skills and circle defending and apply themselves to scoring as many shots as possible. 20 rolled up socks, a domestic bin, a 4-metre measured distance and a stopwatch: how many pairs of rolled-up socks could they score in the bin in 45 seconds? Mia matched the score of the opposing school but lost out on time, however super shot Emilia is now in the semi-finals, after beating Talbot Heath and Wrekin. This could be the first trophy in the sporting cabinet this year!

Senior technical sessions

Before Christmas, any Sixth Form player currently in the performance pathway, were invited to attend technical and tactical training sessions at lunchtimes, following COVID protocol and keeping numbers to a minimum meant that these players were still able to experience some form of netball. Since their Christmas break training sessions have all been on Teams. It has been interesting creating the sort of performance environment that the girls train in at school but with a little bit of imagination and use of props we are recreating technical skills in the garden and in the living room.

1^st VII vice-captain Emily commented “The zoom sessions are great, in the absence of training in person it has been a great opportunity to get the team together and focus on footwork, fitness and ball handling skills. It has also been great to have the team “together” during this time”