Local polling booths won’t be the only busy places this Saturday, with thousands set to descend upon the Jamison Park Netball Complex for the start of the Penrith District Netball Association (PDNA) winter season.
Unlike in previous years, a fine day is forecast for this Saturday’s season opener, which will include the traditional March Past event.
Penrith Netball’s March Past is one of the highlights of the local sporting calendar, with 2025 set to be no different.
“We love the March Past, and the people enjoy it as well,” PDNA President, Joy Gillett told the Weekender.
“The young ones who march all like doing it and it’s a nice and colourful spectacular.”
With the cost-of-living and rival sports enticing female participants away more and more, numbers are slightly down on last year according to Gillett.
“We’ve dropped a few teams this year and I think the economy and other sports have a lot to do with that,” she said.
“Females now have the opportunity to play rugby league, and a lot of younger kids are taking that up. But overall, we still have more than 3500 registered players, so we are quite happy.”
Two clubs who won’t be featuring this winter season down at Jamison Park are the Sydney West All Stars and Winmalee Netball Club, with the latter taking the season off due to a lack of volunteers.
“In total, we have 18 clubs this year, with Cambridge Park officially our biggest club,” Gillett revealed.
“The battle for the biggest club has always been between St Nicholas and Penrith RSL, but Cambridge Park are on top for the first time with 38 teams representing. Cambridge Park are excited about their rise to the top and have an immense sense of pride.”
The 2025 PDNA winter season will also see a number of changes introduced, including an important one regarding officials under the age of 18.
“We’ve introduced green wrist bands for umpires who are under 18 to wear,” Gillett said.
“We’re trialling that this year and it’s not mandatory for them to wear, but it’s designed to let players and spectators know that these umpires are young and to be respectful.
“This idea is done in soccer and football but never before in netball in NSW.”
Another noticeable change will be marshals patrolling certain fixtures to monitor behaviour on the sideline.
“Cambridge Park are introducing a marshal for each team to have at their game,” Gillett said.
“They will be wearing vests that state they are a marshal and their job is to look after the sideline, the spectators, and to make sure there’s no problems regarding behaviour. They are not to interfere with anything else, but just to monitor things and keep it all under control.”
In some other exciting news for the future of the sport, Penrith Netball will run a weekly all abilities program each Saturday from week three for interested participants, and the Mixed competition continues to grow with three divisions – made up of 18 teams – set to take to the court this season.
“The Mixed comp is growing every year, and eventually we may look at a male competition as well,” Gillett teased.
Nathan Taylor
Nathan Taylor is the Weekender's Deputy Editor and Senior Sports Writer. He also compiles the weekly Chatter on the Box TV column. Nathan is an award-winning journalist, who has worked at the Weekender for a decade.