Netball: Steel's draw fair enough

Southern Steel coach Robyn Broughton is happy enough with her side's ANZ Championship draw for 2011.

The experienced coach would have preferred opening the campaign at home in Invercargill instead of Auckland - and she is not thrilled by the condensed season which crams 65 round-robin games into 12 weeks - but the draw was fair and everyone was in the same boat, she said.

"It is never going to be perfect but it is as fair as it can be," Broughton said.

"There has been some changes since I first looked at it and they did try and help us all. But I'm disappointed we couldn't start at home."

The Steel starts with a tough fixture against the Northern Mystics in Auckland on Valentine's Day - a game in which there has traditionally been no love lost.

Six days later, the combined Otago-Southland team heads to Rotorua for a game against the Waikato-Bay of Plenty Magic.

The Steel's first home fixture is against the Central Pulse on February 26.

But Dunedin-based Steel fans have to wait until round nine for their side to play at the Edgar Centre - it is a derby match against the Canterbury Tactix.

Two weeks later, the Steel returns to Dunedin, where it remains undefeated, to play the New South Wales Swifts.

The Steel covers some distance between round four and eight.

The Invercargill-based team plays in Brisbane on March 6 and has to endure a taxing stretch in which it will play the Pulse in Palmerston North on March 14 and then face a long flight to Perth for a date with the West Coast Fever five days later.

There is then a seven-day break before the Steel plays the Adelaide Thunderbirds in Invercargill.

In round eight the Southern team will play twice - against the Tactix in Christchurch on March 31 and the Melbourne Vixens on April 3.

"It is a full-on competition and you are coming and going a lot," Broughton said, adding her side's depth would be thoroughly tested.

"You need depth on your bench. I've already said it, the ANZ Championships is not the place to develop players. But there is not an awful lot of players to fill up the bench. We have not got the depth the Australians have got."

The regular season has been cut from 15 weeks to 12 weeks to accommodate players as they prepare for the World Championships in Singapore in July 2011.

Other key changes are the scheduling of three double rounds, in which seven or eight games will be played rather than the traditional four or five, the removal of the bye rounds and the introduction of Thursday night matches for five of the regular rounds.