PHOTO
Southern Steel coach Robyn Broughton's future is in doubt after the trans-Tasman league netball franchise today opted to advertise the position for the 2012 season.
Broughton coached the Southern Sting in the national league in 1998 leading them to seven national titles before taking over the reins of the Steel for the inaugural trans-Tasman netball season in 2008.
Her contract with the Steel expires at the end of the 2011 season and franchise chairwoman Janet Copeland said the decision to advertise the role was made with the future in mind.
"The world of professional sport is no different to the corporate world and succession planning is a vital component of that," she said.
It is the first time the Steel have advertised the position and it comes after a disappointing season where the Steel won just four matches. In the past they have conducted a review of the head coach role at the end of each season.
Copeland said the board had a responsibility to plan for the future and investigate all potential coaching options.
Former Australian international Natalie Avellino is tipped to be a contender for the role.
While Broughton's role may be under threat, Northern Mystics' mentor Debbie Fuller looks assured of retaining her job next year as this season's truncated trans-Tasman netball league draws to a close.
Fuller replaced Te Aroha Keenan at the Mystics' helm at the end of last season, joined by former Silver Fern Jenny-May Coffin as assistant coach, and has guided her team into their first play-off series.
The Mystics' form has always been patchy: since the league's 2008 inception, they have finished seventh, eighth and sixth.
They have yet to deliver their best this year, but have shown real grit in finishing fourth with nine wins from 13 games.
Perennial play-off participants Waikato-Bay of Plenty Magic join the Mystics, the unbeaten Queensland Firebirds and inaugural champions NSW Swifts in next week's semifinals.
Magic coach Noeline Taurua re-signed with the franchise last year for two years after being at the helm since 2008, and said at the time she had looked closely at whether or not it was time to move on.
Magic chief executive Sheryl Dawson said she and Taurua would be discussing the situation after playoffs were over.
"We discuss it every year at the end of the season, but we don't want to be disrupting the momentum of the team by discussing things like the coach," Dawson told NZPA
"It's important that there is a two-year contract, but at the end of each year you sit down and have a really good debrief and decide where to from there."
If Broughton does depart the Steel, it would mean three of the five New Zealand franchises would have new coaches in 2012.
Central Pulse's Yvette McCausland-Durie and Canterbury Tactix's Helen Mahon-Stroud have already confirmed they will step down from their roles.
McCausland-Durie has just completed her third year at the Pulse, overseeing a modest improvement from 10th in 2009 to eighth this year.
Expressions of interest in the Pulse coaching job closed today, with a decision expected sometime this month.
Tactix chief executive Peter Smith said Mahon-Stroud's resignation meant a refocus for the franchise, which finished bottom of the league for the second year.
"We're in the process of getting feedback from our players, which is a critical part of it. That starts tomorrow, then the priority is to get coaching and support staff in place, which we hope to do within the next couple of weeks," he told NZPA.
"We'll first look locally, to see what's there, then nationally and then the last resort is internationally."
The head coach jobs are sure to be hotly contested: the Magic's Marg Foster, Pulse No 2 Gail Parata and Tactix's Julie Seymour have all garnered valuable experience in the assistant coach role in recent years, with national under-21 coach Janine Southby also in the mix.