At face value, the national championships in Dunedin last week were a fabulous success.
The final two days of the week-long tournament were a real festival of netball, with upsets in both semifinals and a dramatic last-gasp win by Otago in the final contributing to the excitement.
The top four teams oozed class, particularly Christchurch, which boasted a team generously supplied with ANZ Championship players.
Like most sporting contests, there were some lopsided games, but Netball New Zealand operations director Kate Agnew believed the quality of play was of a high standard compared with recent tournaments.
However, Agnew, who is in her 13th year with NNZ and has been responsible for running aspects of the tournament since 2003, acknowledged there had been a poor buy-in from the country's netball centres.
New Zealand switched from a regional to a zone-based organisational structure less than a year ago and those changes were taking some time to bed in, she said.
Eight of the 12 teams at the tournament were from just two of the five new netball zones, and there were no teams from areas such as North Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Hawkes Bay, Taranaki, Wanganui and Tasman.
''I think this year is a good restart for it,'' Agnew said.
''Unfortunately, in the time when regions were responsible for entries into the tournament, over that 12 years we saw the entries decline.
''But one of the exciting parts of the restructure for me is to see centres re-engaging with their local pride and identity.
''The point is we are less than 12 months into the new structure, and some centres and some zones have taken time to work through the opportunities that they now have under the new structure.
''We have already had feedback from four or five centres that they will look to enter a team next year and that will give us the full geographic coverage of New Zealand, which, to be fair, isn't quite there this year.''
The other issue is the tournament does not seem to have as clear a position in the market as it once did.
It has sat below franchise-based competitions since 1998, but it remains important to NNZ because of its week-long structure, which replicates what happens at tournaments such as the world championships and the Commonwealth Games.
However, with the establishment of an under-23 tournament this year, the role of the national championships is suddenly unclear.
The under-23 tournament operates as a feeder tournament for the ANZ Championship and that is where the next group of emerging players can be spotted. It appears to carry more weight with selectors. The national championships, it seems, are more about opening up opportunities for players beneath that level.
So, is it still the elite domestic tournament in the country?
''It is about opening up participation opportunities as well as representative opportunities,'' Agnew said.
''We will be reviewing our events and tournaments like we always do. But because the restructure has been in place less than 12 months, I think it would be a little bit premature to toss the baby out with the bath water.
''Over the next 12 months, there is a real opportunity ... for us to sit down and re-examine things.''
