Mid Canterbury’s Sidekick senior rep netball team will have their first outing of 2023 on Sunday, when they set out to defend the Hanan Shield on home turf at the EA Networks Centre.

An annual tournament between Mid Canterbury, South Canterbury and North Otago which dates back to 1950, the Hanan Shield is a highly anticipated fixture on the calendar of all centres involved and Mid Canterbury coach Cindy Meadows and her team can’t wait to hit the court.

Mid Canterbury and South Canterbury will kick the day off at 10am, with South Canterbury and North Otago to play at 12.30pm, followed by Mid Canterbury and North Otago at 3pm.

Last year, it went down to the wire. The 2021 winners South Canterbury beat North Otago comprehensively to start things off, meaning Mid Canterbury needed to beat South Canterbury in the middle game of the day to stand a chance of taking it home. They did just that, which set up an all to play for final game.

North Otago had been well beaten by South Canterbury at the beginning of the day, and Mid Canterbury had then beaten South Canterbury, so the green and golds went in as hot favourites, but North Otago are never a team to be taken lightly.

In the end though it was Mid Canterbury who prevailed, 55-35, to ensure they brought the Hanan Shield back from Waimate with them.

The 2023 team is a very different looking team to the one that claimed the historic shield in 2022, but Meadows is confident she’s very much got the team to get the job done, and would love to see lots of people on the sidelines cheering them on.

The 2023 Mid Canterbury side is being captained by Alice Breading, and once the Hanan Shield tournament is done, she and her team will turn their attention to the Senior Whakataetae tournament hosted by Mid Canterbury Netball on September 2 and 3.

The Sidekick Mid Canterbury team for 2023 is: Caitlin Adlam, Alice Breading, Rachel Grant, Sammy Holden, Mellissa Mathieson, Alyssa McGinity, Olivia McLennan, Ellen Nicol, Shannon Vidler, Natasha Waddell. Non-travelling reserves: Hayley Duthie, Samantha Collins, Teigan Parish.

Article added: Tuesday 01 August 2023