This week there has been a real buzz about netball among the girls at Brandeston Hall.
It began with our training sessions on Monday being particularly directed towards short matches in preparation for the tournaments at the end of the week.
A block fixture with Barnardiston on Wednesday saw the U11A team fight back to get a well deserved draw and the B team win the matches at home, whilst the U13A and U12A teams won convincingly away at Barnardiston. In fact a number of players in both teams played part of the game in most unfamiliar positions but hopefully gained useful insights from the experience.
The U11A squad departed early on Thursday morning to play in their regional IAPS tournament hosted by Felsted. The weather conditions were not conducive to playing netball but to the girls’ great credit they performed to the best of their ability and certainly benefited from the experience. On Friday, in equally appalling conditions, the U12A and U13A squads played some excellent netball in a very competitive arena. Their attitude was fantastic despite being soaked in the pouring rain and they should all feel very proud of their efforts. Both teams came midway in their respective groups. As always our girls were fabulous ambassadors for Brandeston Hall.
Our week of netball culminated with a trip on Saturday to the Herts Sports Village in Hatfield to watch the Netball Superleague match between the home team Hertfordshire Mavericks and the visitors Loughborough Lightning. Twenty four girls from years 6, 7 and 8 enjoyed the opportunity to watch top class netball played by several England internationals. It was a very close match at times with Mavericks trailing Loughborough Lightning for quite a lot of the game. However Mavericks really took their play up a gear in the final quarter to win by ten goals, the final score being 55-45. Everyone was amazed by the speed of movement and ball skills and the girls were able to pick up tips from players in their favourite positions to incorporate into their own games in the future. We enjoyed meeting the Mavericks’ mascot Miranda the meerkat and lots of the girls had the chance to chat with their favourite players, get autographs on the programmes and t-shirts they bought or to have a photo taken. We stopped on the way home for supper and some tired but happy girls arrived back at Brandeston in the snow having had a great end to a busy netballing week.
