PANTHERS PREMIER LEAGUE NETBALL
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ABOUT PANTHERS NETBALL
2024 will be our 10th year of competition.
Netball NSW introduced the Premier League competition to provide an additional pathway between association netball and State netball competition. In 2013 Netball NSW invited submissions from NSW Netball affiliated Associations to enter two teams into this elite competition. Following discussion at Penrith Netball, we invited Blue Mountains Netball Association and Hawkesbury District Netball Association to join us in a combined submission for a franchise named “Panthers Premier League Netball”. Penrith Netball had earlier discussions with the directors of Panthers Rugby Leagues Club, who had endorsed our submission for support and to create a partnership.
The original franchises were:
Panthers, Manly Warringah Sapphires, GWS Fury (Blacktown, Baulkham Hills), ERNA Hawks (Eastwood Ryde), North Shore United (Kuring-gai, Northern Suburbs), Sutherland Stingrays, UTS Randwick Sparks, Central Coast Heart (Gosford, Woy Woy, Wyong).
In 2020 two more franchises were added to the Premier League Competition – one from ACT – Capital Spirit and one from the Illawarra region - South Coast Blaze – Illawarra, Shoalhaven and Kiama.
In the inaugural year of Premier League Netball, our Under 20s team finished in top position and gave us much promise for the future. The Under 20s team was changed to Under 23s in 2020.
2020 and 2021 were both interrupted by Covid with shortened seasons. 2020 started late and 2021 did not finish. With the success of our junior players in Penrith Netball over recent years, we have a very bright future at Premier League level, which is exciting for netball in our area.
Premier League was established to give a pathway to players into State and Australian teams and we are already showing results in this area by having an Australian player who also plays for the Swifts plus other players either in State teams or talent squads for State Teams.
Our Committee
Joy Gillett OAM
Chair
Penrith District Netball
Lynn Deuis
Director
Penrith District Netball
Viv Bertenshaw
Director
Hawkesbury City Netball
Tricia Mann
Director
Penrith District Netball
Jason Baker
Director
Hawkesbury City Netball
High Performance Manager
Lisa Beehag packed a lot into her international career, which spanned a little over three years in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.
She was a last minute call-up to Australia’s 1987 Netball World Cup team to replace the injured Michelle den Dekker (nee Fielke). Beehag also played at the 1989 World Games in Germany and captained Australia on a tour of China in 1990.
Once her playing days ended, Beehag turned her attention to coaching starting at the Australian Institute of Sport and was an assistant coach with the Australian team for six years between 1997-2003.
After stints coaching overseas in Canada and Singapore, Beehag returned to Australia and coached the NSW Swifts for two seasons (2012-2013) in the ANZ Championship.
In 2015 Panthers Premier League Netball were pleased to announce that Lisa Beehag would be the coach of the Open team in 2016. She has been a part of the Panther family ever since.
