Peebles U17 Bullets 66

Edinburgh U17 Highlanders 19

Peebles U13B Planets 32

Fife U13B Phantoms 2

PEEBLES Netball teams have been busy over the last months with a flurry of matches in the qualifying pool stages of their national championships.

In a first for the club, their Primary 7 Planets, playing as U13Bs, took a road trip over the bridge to Fife to take on the Phantoms.

Peebles Netball are current Scottish Youth Champions at U13 age group, but have never fielded a B team before, although their winning team in the previous year included two Primary 7 players.

In another first for the club, the U13B squad of nine includes no fewer than two sets of twins and two cousins.

In the event, nerves and excitement were evident in the opening minutes, before the girls settled into their organised game plan and started to put scores on the board.

Both teams had much possession of the ball but it was the young Peebles players who secured the goals in the adult-height goalposts required for the championship.

Peebles U17 Bullets were also thrilled to taste their first Cup competitive match as a team, having so far been denied match-play due to Netball Scotland’s ruling that no national squad player at this age group can play in Scottish Regional District matches. With no fewer than five of the squad selected for the Scotland U17 long squad this season, the club’s success has led, in effect, to this ban on match-play for the entire squad, at the highest level of play.

The Bullets have started on their Scottish Youth campaign, with a tough first round pool, which includes West Edinburgh, last year’s winners at U15 age group. Their first match against the Holyrood Highlanders was won comfortably, although the Bullets were playing catch-up on their top-level match-play finesse.

Peebles Netball coaches and manages the five Peebles High School teams, with all winning every one of their pool qualifiers, and all securing their place in the gold section of the Scottish Schools’ Cup for the knock-out stages.

A tight timetable will see the second round matches being played across the country within the next few weeks.