Does The Weather Affect Inner West Netball Competitions?
Sports are played in specially designed spaces that can adequately accommodate and contain the movements of all the players and associated equipment. Some are required to be played indoors and some outdoors, while other sports competitions can be effectively facilitated in both an indoor and outdoor venue.
Netball is a much-loved sport in Australia and it is essentially an outdoor winter sport — this means that it is played even in the rain and snow. If you’re planning to start playing netball, it’s important to know the impact of the weather on netball competitions held in your location.
To give you a clearer picture, provided below is an overview of the weather procedures at Melbourne Social Netball, which is your best venue choice when it comes to playing Inner West netball.
Official weather-related rules
Melbourne Social Netball complies with the All Australian Netball Associated Limited or AANA stipulations that, as previously mentioned, netball is an outdoor winter sport and can be played in the rain and snow. Players must adjust the speed in which they play during wet weather.
However, playing netball is prohibited in conditions such as close proximity lightning or close proximity hail.
Melbourne does not experience much wet weather that would be so unfavourable that games would be disrupted. Still, all outdoor netball courts are required to be designed with a one-inch water runoff.
House rules
During cold or wet weather
If cold weather does roll around, each venue has a coordinator who will follow the set procedure: They will call the captain of a netball team assigned to a specific timeslot to say that their game needs to be cancelled.
Take note that these cancellations are only done to specific timeslots — never the remaining night — so without a call from the venue coordinator announcing the cancellation, all reserved timeslots will proceed as planned (players are advised to consider wearing long pants and sleeves if it’s cold).
The venue will not respond to phone enquiries made during the day about whether a game is cancelled. And if a team fails to arrive for their timeslot, assuming that their game has been cancelled, a forfeit fine must be paid.
During dry weather
Similarly, venue coordinators follow protocol if the weather gets too hot. As stated in the Sports Medicine Australia Guidelines, coordinators will arrive at the venue and contact weatherzone.com.au 30 minutes prior to a game.
If the temperature at 6 p.m. is 36 degrees or over, the 6:20 p.m. and 7 p.m. timeslots at all venues will be cancelled. Melbourne Social Netball will post about the cancellation on Facebook and the team must reply (in one post only) that they understand and acknowledge the cancellation.
At 7:15 p.m., if the temperature remains at 35 degrees and over, coordinators will do a game-by-game cancellation and notify team captains through a phone call.
During games that push through in hotter weather, all players are encouraged to re-hydrate with the fluids they brought to the games after every quarter; this must be done by each player, to be witnessed by the game umpire. Players are not permitted to wear hats or sun visors as they can cause injury, but sunglasses are allowed.
Get in touch with Melbourne Social Netball (with venues at the Riverside Golf and Tennis Centre, Melbourne High School, Richmond Recreation Centre, Flagstaff Gardens, and Ryan’s Reserve) for your next sporting activities.