Familiar faces to line up in all Rata premier club final
Rata A will take on the Rata Tatas team in the 2023 club decider at ILT Stadium Southland. First centre pass is scheduled for 2pm.
A couple of ANZ Premiership netballers will feature in what’s expected to be an intense all-Rata showdown in Invercargill Netball Centre’s premier club final on Saturday.
Rata A will take on the Rata Tatas team in the 2023 club decider at ILT Stadium Southland. First centre pass is scheduled for 2pm.
Included in the Rata Tatas team is Tactix shooter Aliyah Dunn and Southern Steel legend Te Huinga Reo Selby-Rickit.
The Tatas team also includes former Steel player Kendall Corkery Rata A went through the 2022 season unbeaten, but the emergence of the Tatas team has offered up stiff competition this season.
Added to the was a new St Mary’s team lead by another southern netball legend in Wendy Frew.
Andrea de Vries doubles as both the Rata Netball Club’s president and the Rata A coach. She felt the calibre of the competition in 2023 had certainly lifted.
Having the likes of Dunn, Selby-Rickit, Corkery, Frew and others pull the dress on at club level was certainly a boost in helping some of the younger players coming through.
“One thing we have probably struggled with is the development of players going through the ranks in Southland. It’s few and far between,” de Vries said.
“So having those really experienced players contribute at the club level has been really awesome to get around them, learn from them, test themselves against them, so it’s been good for the competition all around.”
Rata A topped the round-robin table and in terms of wins between the two finalists to date in 2023 it has been one win apiece.
Both teams won their semifinals by larger-than-expected margins last Saturday.
Rata A beat St Mary’s A 41-26 and Rata Tatas beat St Mary’s Old Gals 42-20.
“That was really surprising because both of those St Mary’s teams, always normally going down to the wire. So, it was really surprising on Saturday to take quite large wins,” de Vries said.
A key figure in the Rata A team is 21-year-old Kate Hartley.
Hartley emerged from Southland Girls’ High School as a promising player and this year was part of the Southern Steel squad as a training partner.
Although Hartley hasn’t been contracted for 2024 as a training partner.
For the two Rata teams Saturday will be the pinnacle of their 2023 seasons with the traditional Thursday night Southland-wide competition scrapped this year.
Five teams had entered, and it wasn’t deemed to be enough.
de Vries hopes the Southland-wide competition will return in 2024.
Saturday is a big day for the Rata Netball Club, not just because it has two teams in the premier grade final.
All up it had 12 teams take part in semifinals last Saturday with seven teams now set to take part in various grade finals this Saturday.
On top of that one of Rata’s two men’s teams will compete for top spot in their competition on Monday.
“It’s like herding cats, it’s quite fun,” de Vries joked about the logistics of it all.
de Vries expects to be at the stadium 8.30am supporting Rata teams before she plays in a final herself at 10.40am, and then coaches Rata A in the premier final at 2pm.