National Netball League

The ANZ Premiership’s first season began in 2017. The competition featured the five New Zealand teams from the ANZ Championship: Central Pulse, Mainland Tactix, Northern Mystics, Southern Steel, and Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic. The Premiership also added an extra team, the Northern Stars.

Southern Steel, based in Invercargill, won the inaugural season. Southern Steel was coached by Reinga Bloxham and captained by Wendy Frew and enjoyed an undefeated regular season. Steel beat Central Pulse 69–53 in a thrilling final, which was their 16^th consecutive win of a remarkable season. The Steel then went on to build on this title win in 2018, again coming up against Central Pulse in the final and defeating them in an extremely narrow contest by a scoreline of 54–53.

In 2019, though, Central Pulse would not be denied for a third consecutive time. The Wellington-based side would again advance to the grand final and this time come up against the Northern Stars. Pulse won a tight game 52–48, finally winning the ANZ Premiership after two heart-breaking final defeats.

Indeed, Central Pulse has proved to be the league’s most consistent team, making four consecutive grand finals. Between 2018 and 2020 Pulse won three minor premierships in a row and in 2020, just as in 2019, they won the title. 2020 saw them play against Mainland Tactix and win 43–31. 2021 is the only year so far which Central Pulse haven’t played an ANZ Premiership final. In that year, Northern Mystics played in a very close match against Mainland Tactix who were playing in their second successive final. Mystics scraped by Tactix with a scoreline of 61–59.

Most recently in 2022, Central Pulse reasserted their dominance over the rest of the league. With a team coached by Yvette McCausland-Durie, Central Pulse won their third title. Pulse finished the regular season as minor premiers above Northern Stars and Northern Mystics, and their final opponents the Northern Stars beat the Northern Mystics 63–57 in the elimination final. The Pulse then played the Northern Stars in a repeat of the 2019 final and easily came out on top with a scoreline of 56–37.        

The 2022 season was also affected by COVID-19 disruptions as in 2020. Central Pulse were supposed to host the ANZ Premiership tournament, but it was cancelled after COVID-19 restrictions shifted. Central Pulse’s first round game was cancelled due to an outbreak in their squad, which included their head coach, Yvette McCausland-Durie. Some cancelled matches were rescheduled and added to later rounds, but this generated a backlog of rounds that added a thirteenth round to the competition.

The ANZ Premiership responded to the COVID-19 disruptions by creating a free agent player pool to reduce cancelled games. This allowed teams to draft temporary replacements.