There would not be too many club tournaments in any sport around the country with the quality of coaching the Dunedin Netball Premier competition boasts.
There are three former representative coaches in the league.
St Hilda’s Collegiate has former Silver Ferns coach Janine Southby leading the campaign.
The former Western Flyers midcourter also coached the Steel and the Otago Rebels, and had a stint as the Rebels assistant coach under the leadership of the doyenne of netball Lois Muir.
Her daughter, Grace Southby, plays for the team.
Former Otago coach Lana Morrison has the reins at University Albion A. She led the Otago team in 2006 and in 2017 guided St Hilda’s into the final of the club competition.
Lauren Piebenga completes the trio. She led Otago to victory in 2013 and has also had success with the Netball South Beko team.
She is an assistant coach with the Steel and was a rising star until she opted to step back a little in 2018 and spend more time with her family.
Silver Ferns selector Jo Morrison is not involved in an official coaching capacity but she has a lot of involvement with the Physed club.
There are other experienced and talented coaches in the tournament but the above four have the longest
curricula vitae.
Morrison has a dual role. As well as leading University Albion A, she is in charge of coaching development and training for Netball South.
She told the Otago Daily Times the coaching community worked closely together.
"We are quite collaborative as well which is really neat. And there is a wealth of knowledge, there is no doubt about it."
That collegiality even extends to game day.
"We’ve all got our hearts in the game so we’re not going at each other, were more about celebrating each other and that kind of approach.
"We all talk and I had a coach ring this morning and Janine rang me last week about her school team.
"We have really engaged coaches and they are involved not only in coaching their own team but in helping other coaches. In my role, I think that is amazing."
Piebenga said the community was "really fortunate to have a lot of experienced coaches".
And that experience helped make everyone that much better at their role.
"I guess we all bring that through our clubs in different ways. But it is always a great challenge for us every Saturday to look at the strategy and the game plan each team are putting out."
