Netball in Tasmania has something other sports are craving - the clarity that comes with a resumption date.
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Chief executive Aaron Pidgeon announced on Wednesday that the sport, subject to public health advice, would be returning at both a state league level and community level in July after the COVID-19 shutdown, the third stage of the state government's "road map to recovery".
The Tasmanian Netball League will resume without spectators with round three matches on July 24 and 25, with association netball to resume from July 13.
It will be part of a four stage approach for the sport, with the first already activated to allow restricted training outdoors. Stage two, from June 15, will see numbers increase to 20 per court and training can be moved indoors, with stage three to see contesting, contact and match-play allowable at training with community competitions and the TNL's return.
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A fourth stage, which has an unknown timeline, would see spectators return, although with restrictions.
Pidgeon said it was important moment to have these dates after the sport become the first in the state to suspend competition on March 13, hours before the grand final rematch between Cavaliers and Northern Hawks.
The dates were originally expected to be confirmed on Thursday, but after receiving confirmation from Communities, Sport and Recreation Tasmania, it was decided to bring the announcement forward.
"While the key thing with those dates is that we need to be guided by public health advice, and we know that they might be bumped, but we have to have something to aim for,'' he said.
"The community has been really patient and understand the role they need to play, but everyone is keen to get back into action for both their physical and mental needs and now the restrictions are slowly being lifted that gives associations, clubs and participants something to plan around and that is important as obviously they have been in limbo for a while."
The Tasmanian Netball League will now be a shorter competition [14 rounds with each team playing each other twice], with the grand final set down for October 10.
However with just 100 participants allowed per venue for the state competition and 30 participants for association netball to start with, license fees for clubs and member fees have been waived.
"We are preparing for a world where we may not have spectators return to TNL this year so that challenges the revenue streams for clubs, and we just felt we needed to help out to make sure we got the competition back going again, so taking away the fee responsibility takes away that revenue pressure for them,'' Pidgeon said.
"At the community level we as a board determined it was extremely important that we get the participants back and give them the best opportunity to come back as many people have been impacted financially, and we hope doing this will help and we are in a fortunate position that we can."