ANZ Championship - Format

Format

The ANZ Championship operates as a 17-week tournament with 69 matches during the first half of the calendar year. However, a condensed version of this schedule was used in the 2011 season to accommodate the 2011 Netball World Championships, which was held in July that year. Prior to the opening match, pre-season tournaments are held in Australia and New Zealand. The official pre-season tournament is the Netball Cup (formerly the SOPA Cup), which is held in Sydney over three days in the month leading up to the regular season.

Each season starts with a 14-week round-robin stage, followed by a three-week finals series. In the initial round-robin stage, each team plays other teams from their own country twice, and teams from the other country once. Each team plays at least six home games, and also has one bye, some time during rounds five to nine. Teams accumulate points during the round-robin stage: two points are awarded for each match won, while no points are earned for matches lost; competition rules do not generally allow for draws. Teams are ranked according to points accumulated, with the team that has the most points ranked highest, and so on; teams with equal competition points are subsequently sorted by goal percentage (calculated as the total number of goals scored during the competition divided by the total number of goals conceded, all multiplied by 100), accurate to two decimal places.

The four highest-ranked teams at the end of the round-robin phase progress to the finals series; other teams are eliminated from the competition for that season. The finals series is played over three weeks using a Page-McIntyre System. The first-ranked team from the round-robin phase hosts the second-ranked team in the major semi-final; third hosts fourth in the minor semi-final, the loser of which is eliminated. The loser of the major semi-final hosts the winner of the minor semi-final in the preliminary final. The grand final is contested between the winner of the major semi-final and the winner of the preliminary final, with the former team as hosts.

Matches are played under international netball rules. From 2010, one exception to the international rules will apply in the ANZ Championship, allowing coaches to talk with players during time stoppages. Another new feature of the competition will see the game clock displaying the final 60 seconds of each quarter, where previously the clock was blank for that time. In addition, matches that are tied at the end of four quarters continue into extra time until a winner emerges.