With Bathurst Netball Association to commence its junior and senior competitions next month, there is plenty of excitement amongst its member clubs.
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Defending A grade champions Collegians Mystified is keen to get its campaign underway, with the top senior competition in Bathurst to start on July 25 and run for seven weeks before a finals series.
The team has experience several changes, so coach Mel Noonan said the team will be focused on building and enjoying its netball.
"We've got a fairly new team for the season, so to play for the first half of the season would have been nice to build and head into something for the second half," she said.
"To only have seven rounds to get up and running, it's going to be interesting.
"We're not putting any pressure on the team this year. It'll be purely getting out there and enjoying the time we have."
Noonan said her team is fairly young, with a mix of university students.
"We lost five from a couple of years back and then we lost five again," she said.
"We're quite a young team. We've had some uni students leave and whatnot and that kind of stuff. We've also had girls go off to uni.
"There's always a turnaround in a team and you can cope with a turnaround. It's just not having that time to build for the first part of the season. We'll just get out and enjoy the netball we can."
With a seven week regular season, Noonan said it'll be important that her team performs consistently if they want to qualify for finals.
"The way they've structure the season is first place goes straight through to the grand final and then second and third fight it off for the next spot," she said.
"We definitely want to be up there in the mix but there'll be no pressure put on the girls. It'll be purely building and looking toward next year again."
And while she's enjoyed having her Saturdays off, Noonan is keen to get back to what she's use to during winter.
"It's definitely exciting we can play but I was enjoying my Saturdays off, I'm not going to lie," she said.
"Not being out in the cold in a winters day was nice for a bit, but at the same time, we've missed the sport and can't wait to get back into it."
Fellow A grade team Bulldogs Verdelho are also keen to get back to playing, with coach Anita Van Dartel saying she's missed it.
"It's lovely that we have something to work towards. I've missed it," she said.
"We haven't gone back to training yet, hopefully next week. We're just making sure we've got all the rules surrounding COVID-19 downpat and aware of them all and start afresh next week.
"I'm looking forward to hanging with the girls and they're all great. It's a nice way to spend your Saturday."
Bulldogs Verdelho finished the regular season in third, but were unable to make the A grade grand final.
"To make [the grand final this year] would be lovely. That's our main goal," she said.
Collegians Mystified won last year's A grade grand final with a 43-33 win over Panthers, which in turn was the clubs second successive title, winning the 2018 title against the same opponent 42-38 in an epic decider.