Distinction

For the distinction, I am going to analyse how the skill components of a netball shot. Already having a basis from the notational analysis, this will then allow me to work out the areas for improvements and strengths of the specific athlete. From there, I can identify the positives and negatives from the performance. The first component I looked at was passing. As netball is a sport where only pivoting is the main form of movement when playing, passing is vital as this is how the ball travels down the court. By having the ability to pass the ball down the court through a range of passes, this can create shooting opportunities for the shooters. Throughout of the 2 games played. The average successful passing completion for game 1 was 77% and game 2 was 95%. This came out to an overall of 86% of successful passes through out of the 2 games. This showed that this was a strength as the athletes score of successful passes was very high and that they maintained this throughout the games. BBC sport (2015) has also stated that “successful passing in game allows a team to gain an advantage and enables easier play”. This shows how much successful passes have an effect upon a game. The higher the success rate, the longer and more efficiently a team will be able to retain possession of the ball and create opportunities to attack. The higher the possession, the higher the success rate of shots will be over the oppositions.

Unsuccessful passes can lead to possession of the opposition which then can lead them to gain an advantage. If the athlete is able to retain the possession of the ball through passes, this can increase their overall rate of getting the ball to the shooting third and shooting more points. Understanding the biomechanical concepts of a skill is essential to improving the overall performance of that specific skill, this is done through modelling, stimulation and measurement (Topend Sports Network, 2013). Threadgold (2015) also states that “By understanding the concepts of the biomechanics movements, it can aid the process of the main passes used in netball which improve results in a gaming situation”. From these quotes, it states that you fully understand the principles of passing and by making successful passes this can lead to a higher success percentage rate of shots and influences how successful an athlete can be. Due to the fact that this athlete was able to produce a number of successful passes, this provided an advantage for the athlete and team as the balls were able to go in the direction to the attacking circle which would increase the number of times shots would be put up. An example of this, this year Loughborough Lightning have become top of their league and this is due to the fact that their passes have become a lot smoother and more consistent between athletes. From last year finishing in the league 3rd to coming out 1st with an overall 7/7 wins. The coach Kate Atkinson has tracked the number of passes from last year to this year and has been an improvement of 23% of successful passes making their success rate to 93%. This lead them to gain an advantage over opponents.

Next, I looked at the rebounds. Both of the defensive and offensive rebounds allow the team to gain extra possession before the opposing team gets a chance to score. In this, we mainly looked at the offensive rebounds from their own shots. By reaching in for the rebound it allows the player to obtain the possession of the ball to then shoot again or position themselves better. It also enables the team to still have the ball in play on their side which reduces the chance of the opposing team to go for the steal. Rebounds happen when there has been an unsuccessful shot that has been put up. As the player I looked at was a goal attacker, it is important for them to get offensive rebounds as then it will stop the defenders from gaining possession but also if they miss the shot then they can go for the rebound and take another try. This enables them to increase the shots put up and shot success rate. Stats Insights (2014) state that “rebounds create possessions, and more possessions mean more points”. This links to the importance of rebounds in a game. Sport plan has also suggested that rebounding is an important element in netball as it can have an overall impact on performance “how they react to a rebounded shot might mean the difference between scoring or conceding a goal" - SportPlan (2016). Overall over the 2 games, the average success percentage was 34%. From this score, this athlete has an area for improvement in order to improve their performance and increase their rebound rate. However, if this rebound rate stays under 50% then this has an impact upon the team and can affect others performances. Within this performance, there is an impact upon the athlete as well as the team as if the success percentage rate stays low at 34% throughout of games then this can lead to an impact in the future games to come. It can result the team to move lower down into the league table due to the loss of possession with rebounds. In this case the oppositions were able to gain possession of the way which then gave them an advantage to get the ball down the court. An example of this is Celtic dragons this year in the 2017 league. They are currently towards the bottom of the table compared to last year coming quite far up. This was due to the amount of rebounds that were lost.

Lastly, the component I looked at was shooting. This is a fundamental part in netball as a successful shot determines winning or losing a game. The player I analysed is a goal attacker and their duty is to cover the centre third as well as their attacking third. As they are one of two who are allowed in the scoring D, it is very important that they have they correct positioning and spacing in order to put up a successful shot. This player had an average of 75% shooting success rate. This is quite high and overall had a high successful percentage rate for both games. If it were to drop any lower, this could lead to the athlete’s performance dropping significantly and would give the oppositions an advantage for a turnover. From this, there wouldn’t be any shots put up. A quote from Netball Fun 2016 stated that “shooting is arguably the most important aspect of the game. Without it, all netball games would end as 0-0 ties, so let’s agree that it is, to some degree, essential to the functioning of the sport". This indicates that a player needs to have a high success of shooting in a game in order to have one over their opponent. This allows them to gain an advantage in competition and increase the overall chance of winning. By having a high success rate in shooting, this has enabled the team to gain an advantage over their opponents as with the high success rate of passes into the attacking circle has let the player to be positioned well in order to shoot. If this is repeated within the next games then the team will benefit from moving up the league tables even further.