Netball Masterclass by George Pritchard
On the 24th October, during the half-term holiday, I was very lucky to attend a Loughborough Lightning Masterclass with my friend Neve. The session was held at Loughborough University, where I had found myself playing the Lightning Academy trials, only a few weeks ago.
Natalie Panagarry, an England player, who had been part of the England Team during the Netball World Cup was to lead the session. We arrived at the University Netball Centre at 0930, a little early but we were super excited! The session started with a 15-minute warm-up as a group, which soon increased our heart rates and loosened our muscles.
The first half of the day focused on attacking skills. Nat demonstrated some ball skills that we practiced with a partner. We learned new techniques to improve our existing skills including; shoulder passes, chest passes and reactions. The next drill had us in groups of 4, face-to-face learning how to get depth down the court, which incorporated going towards the ball and cutting back to receive the ball. After a short break we were put into groups of 6 and we used our skills from the previous drill to form this one which was limiting the passes we would normally carry out to only two passes to move the ball further down the court for the shooter to shoot the ball into the hoop. This was great fun and I found it very useful as I love attacking positions myself.
Lunch was another highlight, not only as we were exceptionally hungry, but we also had time to chat with Nat about her World Cup experience and playing in a Super League, plus photo-time!
The afternoon focus was defence. The last drill we performed was blocking the defender into a corner of the court, I found this very interesting and tactical. With the last hour remaining we applied all the skills learnt throughout the day in match play. Unfortunately, Nat Panagarry had to leave at this point, but she was replaced by another Superleague player called Sam May who was also brilliant!
Overall, this was an experience which personally I will never forget. I have been exposed to new techniques that will definitely improve my netball skills and confidence on the court.