The Netball Performance League (NPL) consists of ten English teams competing for the trophy in U17/U19/U21 age groups. Its aim is to provide the game’s outstanding youth players with a performance environment and to organise for them regular, highly disciplined and intense competition. The teams competing in this are: Severn Stars, Team Bath, Surrey Storm, Saracens Mavericks, North East Phoenix, Loughborough Lightning, Central Warriors, Leeds Rhinos and London Pulse.
We had Warriors represent four different franchises during the league season.
Corey McGlynn, Tabby Tooms and Ella Bowen represented Manchester Thunder U21, these girls went on to become NPL League Champions, whilst Emma Thacker, Millie van Neirop, Bethan Lount finished runners up in the league with Loughborough Lightning U21.
Milly Bairstow, Ruth Grummitt and Maria Savage represented Loughborough Lightning U19s, Amelia Hughes represented Severn Stars U19 and Celena Appleby-Prince Surrey Storm.
Annabel Scoggins, Chloe Mabhara, Hattie Ashford-Clarke and Isabel Hull were all part of the U17 Loughborough Lightning squad.
Following the league, the players get another chance to compete in the NPL tournament, which all 10 franchises compete at and Netball is played across four days. We had some movement of which franchises our players represented with plenty of medals won.
Whilst our players had huge success, our Head Coach Sam started her first year as a coach for Manchester Thunder U21 & U19 after moving on from 7 successful seasons at Loughborough Lightning. Sam’s first season at Manchester Thunder has been filled with lots of learning and development as well as an U21 League title, U19 runners-up League title and U21 Tournament silver and U19 Tournament Bronze.
We are extremely proud of the 16 current club members our head coach as well as a number of former club members that have represented their franchise at NPL level. We look forward to having more individual success next season.