This year marked the 19th edition of the netball tournament organised anually by the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Pulau Pinang. This year also saw less number of teams participating, especially from the country which previously never failed to send teams every year – Sri Lanka.

So only 105 teams registered under 9 categories:

  1. Girls Under 12 (10 teams)
  2. Girls Under 15 (15 teams)
  3. Girls Under 18 (12 teams)
  4. USM Men (6 teams)
  5. USM Women (13 teams)
  6. Men’s Institutions of Higher Learning (4 teams)
  7. Women’s Institutions of Higher Learning (8 teams)
  8. Men’s Open (15 teams)
  9. Women’s Open (22 teams)

Men’s Open

The men’s teams were divided into 5 groups, which, I think, was rather odd. 4 groups would be more logical since it solves the problem of selecting teams to the quarter finals. But, since the organiser wanted it that way…

Group round matches were fought in the sun and rain. Here are the results for the preliminary rounds:

The top 2 teams from each group advanced to the next round. Group champions qualified automatically to the quarter finals. Second placings, except for one lucky team, had to fight another round for a place with the group champions in the quarter.

Cobra Bravo and Legend Premier went through to the quarter finals. The weather was alternately sunny and cloudy throughout the day. It didn’t rain, fortunately.

Here are the results for the quarter finals.

In the semis, it was sibling rivalries where Cobra met Cobra and Legend met Legend.

And Legend met Cobra in the final.

For the past 3 years, USM Open Men’s category was won by team Royale. They did not participate this year, thus giving chances to other teams to win. And so there was a new winner this year.

Congratulations to Cobra Charlie.

My only comment is on the quality of the referee. After 17 years, it seems like the organisers have never learned from whatever happened in the previous years. With regards to men’s netball, I would like to point out that we are NOT there for fun only. We want to win. We know the rules. We are a lot better than most of the women’s teams. So we expect the referees to be good. It was really disheartening to have to scold the referees over the simplest mistakes.

Referees and organisers, please learn and improve!