Dunedin Netball is going back to bigger.
For the past couple of years, the Dunedin club competition has had three premier grades, known as A, B and C, teams playing 12 games per season.
But following club consultation after the 2024 season, Dunedin Netball general manager Lee-Anne Anderson confirmed the competition would be returning to 16 games this year.
Premier netball will also feature four grades, revamped as premier 1, 2, 3 and 4, and each grade will have six teams.
The competition will be split across three rounds — and include two promotion-relegation chances, instead of the traditional one — and wrap up with finals on August 23.
Premier action begins tomorrow. There will be five games in round 1 before the first promotion-relegation games on May 12.
That will be followed by the second round of five more games, including a double-header weekend on May 24-25, and another promotion-relegation game on June 16.
A third round of another five games will be played ahead of the finals.
Anderson said there would be no netball during the university holidays or on long weekends.
"We’ve listened to our members and we do across the season, and particularly at the end of the season, do a lot of consultation with our clubs and schools," Anderson said.
"It’s difficult for our school teams, we acknowledge that, because they’re obviously still playing summer sport."
A bunch of fresh faces have joined the clubs this season, and several are making the step up from their secondary school sides last year, which will make for a competitive competition.
Defending champions University-Albion A will be hunting for their third consecutive title after beating Physed A 65-52 in the final last year.
University-Albion A face Physed B, Physed A play Southern and College A play University-Albion B in the opening premier 1 games tomorrow.
There are also changes across some other grades.
Senior grades will start with mini grading games on May 2 and 3 to ensure they get the most out of their season, instead of being based off last year’s seedings. Secondary school netball remains the same.
The men’s competition has returned to Saturday after playing on Monday nights in recent years.
Anderson said it often clashed with other sport and they hoped by playing on Saturday it would provide more visibility and interest for age-group representative male teams.
