Hey guys! Emma here, I recently joined Netball Scotland as the Club and Competitions Administrator. I had my first Netball Scotland event experience last week, supported by my NS colleagues and Scottish Schools Cup Finals Facilitator Sue Joughin, and I am excited to fill you all in on how the event unfolded and reveal our newly crowned Scottish Schools Cup champs.
The Scottish Schools Cup competition came to a close last week, and what a way to finish the long season.. Two days packed to the brim of netball at one of our favourite venues, Oriam, Scotland’s National Performance Centre for Sport. Over the course of Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd March, we welcomed 24 teams to compete across 12 matches, ranging from S1 to Open age groups, and what fantastic matches they were.
With over 250 schools entering across the 4 age categories this year, the standard of play across all of our finals was extremely high. To make it to the Scottish Schools Cup Finals is a great achievement, not just for the players, but for the coaches, umpires, teachers, bus drivers, supporters – everyone!
On Thursday, the Netball Scotland staff and myself were joined by some excellent umpires from Heriot Watt University. We welcomed the S1, S2 and S3 Bronze in the morning, and the S1, S2 and S3 Silver take place in the afternoon. The games were a great start to our event, some extremely close and exciting games.
The results from Thursdays matches were:
On Friday, Netball Scotland staff were joined by fantastic B umpires; Isobel Joughin, Lauren Matthews and Ross Allan. Friday played host to our S1, S2 and S3 Gold finals, as well as the Open Bronze, Silver and Gold matches. Yet again, the crowds were treated to some fantastic netball, with some of our District and Development Academy players competing for their respective schools. With over 100 spectators for some matches, a great atmosphere was created which pushed players to play to the best of their ability. With 3 out of 6 matches finishing with 1 or 2 goals difference it was clear that the players gave it their all and left everything on the court. The day concluded with the Open Gold which saw Strathaven take the win against Notre Dame.
The results from Fridays matches were as follows:
On behalf of Netball Scotland, I would like to thank all our event volunteers, umpires, players, coaches and of course, the supporters, all of whom made the Scottish Schools Cup Finals event such a great end to the Schools’ season. It was so great to meet you all, and to put faces to the names I have been speaking to on the phone and by email. I hope that you all enjoyed this event as much as I did. For some pictures of the two day event, get over to our Facebook page and check out the Scottish Schools Cup Finals Day 1 and Day 2 Albums, or check out our Insta!
Netball Scotland look forward to seeing all of our competing schools from this past season, and MORE, enter into the Scottish Schools Cup competition for the 2018/19 season. If you have any questions about this competition, or indeed any of the Netball Scotland competition structures, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me.
Emma
Club and Competitions Administrator
Netball Scotland
E. competitions@netballscotland.com
