NZ Bench Officials appointed by IFNA to Netball at 2010 Commonwealth Games

Netball New Zealand confirmed today seven New Zealand Bench Officials have been offered Technical official roles at the Netball during the Commonwealth Games in India 2010.

Since 2000 Netball New Zealand has invested in the development of a national programme for the recognition of Bench Officials. Bench Officials are responsible for the timing and scoring of the game.

Netball New Zealand Operations Director Kate Agnew says Netball New Zealand is leading the way in developing world class players, coaches, umpires and bench officials.

“The area of technical officiating is now becoming a viable pathway to international representation for an increasing number of the netball community,” she said.

The appointment of this group of Bench Officials follows on from the success of the World Netball Championships 2007 in Auckland where the performance and standard of New Zealand match officials was widely praised and internationally recognised. Since 2007, Netball New Zealand’s Bench Officiating processes have been acknowledged as the most comprehensive and advanced in world netball resulting in IFNA approving these for use at this year’s World Youth Championship held in August and they will also be adopted by Singapore, hosts of the World Netball Championships 2011, adopting them too.

The provision and capture of statistics is another area Netball New Zealand has led the way and three of these officials will be responsible for statistics at the Commonwealth Games; Sam Kerins who will be one of the youngest ever officials at the Games will have responsibility for the overall collation of Statistics to teams, media and broadcast aided by Raylene Leith-Forbes and Vicki Reid.

The success and reach of the NNZ Bench Officials programme can be seen in the nationwide nature of these appointments.

The seven NNZ Bench Officials are:

Beryl Harvey                      Bay of Plenty

Sam Kerins                          Eastern

Julie Shaw                           Eastern

Bernice Robertson          Wellington

Raylene Leith-Forbes     Southland

Vicki Reid                             Tasman

Edna Brown                        Waikato

This is the first Commonwealth Games that New Zealand has formally had international appointments, directed by IFNA.