NJ’s club leagues attract 65 teams

The Netball Jamaica's (NJ) club leagues are getting back to full strength as the sport continues its recovery from setbacks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Preliminary rounds for the leagues began yesterday at the Leila Robinson Courts at the National Stadium and Netball Jamaica leagues administrator Joan Benjamin says there is a lot more to come as more teams will mean more games.

"Last year when we just getting out of the COVID-19 pandemic we only had 31 teams overall, (but) this year we have 65 teams. So the COVID sort of limited us but the teams came out this year because they are glad to be playing some netball now," she said."We have teams from St Catherine, Clarendon, Kingston and St Andrew."

The preliminary rounds will run until May 20 with 60 matches each per week, a total of 180 matches over three weeks.

"We are having these rounds in order to help us place the teams in different divisions," she said. "All teams will be playing (in the leagues ) but they will be placed in divisions based on their ability."

The Major and Minor leagues sponsored by Supreme Ventures are scheduled to start on May 27 and then the Intermediate League which will be sponsored by Sunshine Cereals will start on June 3.

Benjamin said the number of teams playing in each league is subject to change but she is still expecting good competition.

"We do not have a set number because we have to look at the strength of the teams but the senior teams will include elite players so in the Major League we are looking at about 10 teams, the intermediate will have between 28 and 30 teams and then the Minor League will have about 25 teams," Benjamin said.