It’s acknowledged as the game they play in heaven and for Pirates, rugby and netball has proven a match made in heaven.
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The Tamworth-based club, who this season claimed back to back Central North premierships, linked up with Westview to form the Westview Pirates Netball Club.
The venture reaped success for both parties on and off the field and both are keen to build on it next year.
“There’s a lot of possibilities,” Pirates president Stuart Prowse said.
The concept of men’s and women’s sporting clubs joining forces is nothing new, but is becoming more commonplace both at an amateur and elite level, and for Pirates was about broadening the community of the club.
It has done that with the netballers going along to support the rugby boys when scheduling allowed them to.
Financially it has also had a benefit, providing a bigger exposure in the sporting space and by extension of that making the club more attractive to sponsors.
For Westview it has really given them an identity.
“Westview have been around for a long time but it’s always been a bit of a cobbled together thing,” Westview Pirates registrar secretary Sarah Horne said.
A home for orphan teams so to speak.
“(Now) We’re a lot more cohesive and working as a club,” she said.
“And the nice thing about it was you could see they were Pirates. It was a sea of black and gold.”
In their inaugural season the club fielded seven teams and exceeded expectations.
Five of the six competition teams (they helped out Timbumburi in the NetSetGo) qualified for the semi-finals, with Gunners emerging from the pack in a WVP-dominated Open B division finals series to secure the new club it’s first silverware.
One of the things that Horne indicated they would like to do is help out some of the outlying and smaller schools, like they did Timbumburi.
Through Pirates’ sponsorship they were able to subsidise uniform costs, which can be one of the biggest expenses for a club.
The arrangement also allows them use of the club’s facilities, such as the clubhouse. Some of the players even joined in Pirates’ pre-season training.
Horne admitted the prospect was initially a bit daunting but said the players were “so encouraging” and it was very beneficial.
“We went into games the fittest we’ve been,” she said.
“We loved it.”
“A fair few of the girls are keen to go again.”
Netball wasn’t the only women’s sport Pirates threw their support behind, also reforming their rugby side.
“We haven’t really had a women’s side since I coached in 2004,” Prowse said.
“We had an opens side and an under 17s side.”
Other sporting commitments and the lack of a regular competition meant there weren’t that many opportunities for the opens to play but they took the under 17s away to a few tournaments.
A seemingly natural fit, Prowse said there was a big benefit to the club having a women’s team.
“It gets people here earlier in the day,” he said.
“The girls bring a big entourage.”
