By Paddy Regester
After six games resulted in draws during the 2019 season, the league announced today that a new extra time rule would be introduced for the 2020 season.
Fans, players and coaches have been crying out for an extra time system which, while it won’t completely eradicate draws, should result in less games finishing without a winner.
Let’s be honest, no one likes a draw.
Six drawn games in 2019 are the most ever in a Super Netball season. Every team except for the Sunshine Coast Lightning had at least one game end with the scores level and the West Coast Fever lead the league with three.
Had these new rules been in place last year, the finals landscape could have looked vastly different. Allow me to get hypothetical for just a moment.
I mentioned earlier that Fever were the team hardest hit by the draw epidemic that swept the league last year.
Had they been able to score just one more goal in those three contests, they would have finished on five wins and nine loses, totals that still would have seen their campaign finish in August.
But one of those drawn contests was against the GIANTS, who inevitably missed out on playing finals by just .62%. Had the GIANTS come away with the chocolates in Perth that fateful Saturday night, it may have been the GIANTS going up against the Vixens in the semi-finals, rather than the Magpies.
Speaking of the Magpies, they too weren’t spared the frustration of a stalemate, tying with the Firebirds and Thunderbirds in rounds two and eleven.
Two wins there would have resulted in nothing more than a black and white colour scheme at the State Netball Hockey Centre rather than pink and teal on semi-final weekend, but a result in a round nine drawn match could have made the finals race very interesting.
That draw was the one between the Thunderbirds and eventual premier Swifts.
Picture this alternate reality….
The Magpies hold on to win against the Firebirds in round two, Maria Folau nails one of her two potentially game-winning shots in the dying seconds of the Thunderbirds round nine draw with the Swifts and Shimona Nelson hits that last second winner against those same Thunderbirds in round eleven.
Both teams finish with the league’s second-best record of nine wins and five loses with just bonus points and percentage to decide who plays against the Lightning in the major semi-final. The drama!
Of course, the Vixens could have cranked the theatrics of this netball opera up to 11 had they put away the Fever in their lone drawn match and ALSO finished with a nine and five record! Three teams vying for second place? Let's go!
In the end, alternate realities aren’t reality. The Swifts won the Grand Final, draws and all, and we all had a lot of fun watching it all unfold.
But it is reassuring to know that, from now on, we’re less likely to see games result in a draw, and more likely to see thrilling conclusions to a season like the alternative I just hypothesized.
