This week the ‘backseat coach’ – former Kelpies captain Heath Brown – prompts us all to take up the offer from Netball Australia to brainstorm new rules SSN should trial to innovate the game.
The Super Shot has taken the world by storm and was born right here, so let’s see if us coaches can come up with the next big game innovation or rule bender!
The criteria I would measure any new idea against are:
- Ideas that innovate the way the global game is played and differentiate netball from other sports
- Steal good ideas from other sports that would help improve our game
- Remove outdated annoyances from current rules
- Broaden the entertainment factor to reach more audiences – it’s actually a pretty tough task they’ve given themselves
I’ve come up with a rule or two for each of these challenge spaces!
Innovate the way the global game is played
Innovation by definition is about doing what others haven’t done before. The Super Shot has already set a new innovation trend globally for netballers. But it was a relative copycat of basketball’s three-pointer. What could netball do that is the first of its type in any ‘ball with a court’ sport?
My idea: ‘the D-credits rule’
No sport I can think of rewards good defence explicitly on the scoreboard. Sure the job is to reduce the opposition goals, but shooters get a credit on the board for every shot while defenders get sweet nothing. Imagine a rule that put a credit on the scoreboard for every intercept and blocked shot in general play – and be the first ball sport to do that!
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In the true spirit of innovation, you would then ask how you could make this idea bolder. What if the credits a team received were recorded privately by the bench, communicated with coaches at each break, and the coach decides when they want to add their credits to the scoreboard, which can only be done at timeouts or even quarter breaks. This is where innovation meets entertainment value – the courtside mind games by each coach as they reveal their credits onto the scoreboard at critical times, each awaiting the other to play their cards.
Steal from other sports!
The Super Shot was a great adaptation as a variation to a three-point shot in basketball, rewarding one of the hardest shooting skills with additional scoreboard value compared to safer and easier shots. What else could we steal across from other sporting codes that create entertainment value or a better game?
Stealing basketball’s shot clock?
Basketball introduced and even reduced the shot clock rule to encourage teams to take more shots in a game. It also led to faster ball movement to find the open shot, rather than patient play waiting for options to open. Could a shot clock rule work in netball?
Stealing back AFL’s flooding?
Many don’t know this, but the first AFL team to use flooding strategies was taught the skill of a netball zone by Victorian elite coaches. They stole the concept and renamed it ‘flooding’. Could we help the game become more defensive by allowing a WD to utilise a new flooding rule where they can place themselves in the circle for the final five minutes of every quarter?
Stealing basketball’s incidental contact allowance?
Netball is now called a semi-contact sport, but the rules in application still mean petty contacts are called that take away from the power our modern day athletes have to absorb this. Could we adapt basketball’s definition of a foul into netball rules so the petty offences are allowed, and even allow umpires to copy referee game control techniques used in basketball to use preventative communication in general play, rather than whistle everything?
Stealing tennis’ Hawkeye
Could netball do its own take on Hawkeye and use AI to determine three feet distance in the circle – one of the game’s most inconsistently applied rules!
Stealing basketball’s three-second rule?
Basketball introduced the ‘Three seconds in the key’ rule to stop tall folks pitching a tent under post and using their height – not skill – to score. Could netball have a hot spot rule where a shooter cannot camp under a highlighted small circle near the post for longer than five seconds?
Remove outdated annoyances from current rules
Please resolve my pet peeve with a rule change about step ins. If a shooter decides to step in on a shot and enter the defender’s space of control, this is 99.99% called a contact on the defender if they dare move an inch. Conversely the good old shooter can barge their way in and move forward into the defender’s arm range. The game is already set up for the tall shooter to succeed.
My idea: ‘Step-in, game on’ rule
Put simply, if a shooter chooses to step into the three foot space infront of them rather than take a squared up shot, a defender is either permitted to reject the ball while in hand without touching the arm of the shooter or given more contesting capacity where incidental contact is allowed and a call only made if contact is excessive. I would also love to see a no lay up rule – mainly for the men’s game. One or two feet on the ground to make a legal shot should be a rule so the art and skill of shooting is on show.
While I’m at it – over a third needs to be canned. Long passes are a spectacle that should be encouraged to speed up the game.
Broaden netball’s’s entertainment value
My first idea above plays to this criteria, but what else could we do to create drama and theatrics in our sport that non netball natives might find interesting to watch?
Here are a few ideas:
In-ear coaching: For netball to be the first sport to allow every player to wear an in-ear piece to receive instruction from coaches while the play is live!
Super Shots: Enhance the Super Shot entertainment value by allowing C and WA to enter the Super Shot space in last five minutes and tee up?
Ladder points: Build a new way to earn ladder points where currently only a team winning scores points. What if individual achievements could earn a team extra ladder points (eg highest interceptor, most circle feed assists, top defensive rebounder, most prolific super shooter). The points could be allocated every four weeks.
What are your thoughts on how to innovate, optimize and contemporise our game?
