PLAYER PATHWAY

The Severn Stars Netball Franchise has a clear vision to develop, perform and grow! We are looking for talented netball players to progress and be a part of our Severn Stars player pathway. We have an emphasis on nurturing and developing talent and creating a professional inclusive environment for all.

During 2021 England Netball had consultations with Franchise/Regional/County representatives about player pathway with three fundamental objectives:

• To review the current player pathway structure/system
• Engage with stakeholders to ensure they are heard and fully represented
• Identify gaps and opportunities that could create greater success for talented athletes across the player pathway.

From these consultations, England Netball have restructured their Player Pathway to provide more structure and a clear pathway for young players.

At Severn Stars, we have been working with England Netball and our Performance board to ensure we offer all players the best opportunity to develop and to represent Stars. Please see below our Severn Stars Player Journey for 2022/23 season with brief descriptions of all stages

Our Severn Stars Player Journey has a number of opportunities for players to represent the franchise at different stages of their development.

The National Performance Leagues (NPL) are England Netball sanctioned competitions for both U19 & U21 squads. It is designed to provide the game’s outstanding youth players with a performance environment. It is an organised, highly disciplined intense competition against the English Vitality Netball Superleague franchises and any other invited teams.

U21 - players born in 2002 or 2003
U19 - players born in 2004 or 2005
U17 - players born in 2006 or 2007
U15 - players going into Year 9 or Year 10 in September

If you have any questions, please get in touch with our General Manager Claire Sanders on [email protected]

Trial Applications are now OPEN! Click below

Trial Applications are now OPEN! Click below

Unsure what the changes to the England Netball Pathway means?

Want to know more about next steps for players?

Listen to the online session about the changes to the pathway.

If once you have read all the information and listened to the online session and you still have a question please contact Claire on [email protected]

** TRIALS FOR U21 HAVE MOVE TO TUESDAY 20th SEPTEMBER**

This season our U21 squads will return to training for year long programme. Home matches will be played at the University of Worcester with selected matches being played as curtain raisers for the VNSL matches. The NPL tournament is back in July!

This season our U17 programme will run parallel with our U21 and U19 programmes over the 11 months between September and July concluding with the NPL tournament. Our U17 squad will only train once a week in person. Player in the U17 can chose to also attend a Nova academy (extra cost).

EN ruling on age group and DOBs.

NPL U17- Aged under 17 and over 14 at 23:59 on 31st December 2022 (i.e., for the 2022/23 season, players must have a date of birth from 2006 to 2008). Any athlete aged 14 or under will only be eligible to compete if they are signed off by the England Netball Performance department.

This season we have added 3 Player Development Programmes to our Severn Stars Player Journey. These PDPs will be based one in the north, one central and one south of our franchise region.

Our PDPs will be U18. These will provide an opportunity for players who may not have made the U19/U17 squads to be supported for another year or talented athletes that want to train and play at a higher level.

From our PDPs, we will select a U18 development squad who will train once a month and play against other franchises.

Our PDPs will also provide the opportunity for talented U15s (following conversations with County U15 PDPs) to join the England Netball pathway to enable them to be selected for the U15 SS School Game Squad

• U18s Player Development Programme: Must be born 2005 - 2009

Training

• Wrekin College Fridays 6pm-9pm
• Kings School Worcester Wednesday 6-8pm & Friday 6pm-7.30pm
• Wycliffe Fridays 6-9pm

We are very proud of our Nova Programme and the athlete that it supports each season. This season we have included NPC days ran at the University of Worcester, with educational sessions around nutrition, sports therapy, S&C, Performance analysis and Wellbeing alongside match play against other NPCs.

Nova Performance Centre – Trials at NPC home venues as below.

Training may change

BMET College (B74 2NW)

Trials – Friday 16^th September 18:00-20:00

Training – Wednesdays 17:30-19:00 and Fridays 18:00-20:00

Monmouth School for Girls (NP25 5XT)

Trials – Friday 16^th September 18:00-20:00pm

Training – Fridays 17:30-20:00

Oswestry School (SY11 2TL)

Trials – Friday 16^th September

Training – Fridays 18.30-21.30

Redmaids’ High School (BS9 3AW)

Trials – Friday 16^th September 18:00-20:30

Training – Fridays 17:45-20:45

Royal Grammar School Worcester (WR1 1HP)

Trials – Friday 16^th September 18:00-20:00 (time tbc)

Training – Wednesdays 18:00-20:00 and Fridays 18:00-20:00

The Crypt School (GL2 5AE)

Trials – Friday 16^th September 17:30-19:30

Training – Wednesday Week One – 17:30-20:30. Week Two – 17:30-19:30

We have also increased the age to U18s.

• U18s Nova Performance Centres: Must be born 2005 - 2009

Players can chose to play for a County Development Programme and a Nova Performance Centre

Details of where our Nova Academies will be based will be released next week.

Our Severn Stars U15 Academy that will represent us at the England Netball U15 Competition on Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th August will be selected on Tuesday 6th June.

Once selected, training will run weekly on Tuesdays and Thursdays from June 13th until Thursday 24th August