Netball Super League | Vitality Netball World Cup competition format explained

The Vitality Netball World Cup 2019 will see England join Australia and New Zealand as the third country to host three Netball World Cups.

The world’s best 16 teams will go head-to-head for netball’s ultimate prize from 12 to 21 July 2019 at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool and there’ll be lots of Vitality Netball Superleague stars in action.

For 2019, the International Netball Federation (INF) has developed a new World Cup competition format, which sees the teams compete in three stages at the tournament:

Preliminaries Stage One: 12-14 July

Preliminaries Stage Two: 15-18 July

Play-offs and Placings matches: 19-21 July

Here’s everything you need to know ahead of the Vitality Netball World Cup…

How long is each match?

Matches shall be 60 minutes in duration consisting of four quarters of 15 minutes.

Intervals between the first and second quarters and the third and fourth quarters will be four minutes.

The half-time interval (between the second and third quarter) will be 12 minutes.

How many points does a team get for a win in the Preliminaries Stage One and Two?

In Preliminaries Stage One and Preliminaries Stage Two, teams will be allocated points: two for a win, one point each for a draw and no points for a loss.

At the end of each preliminary stage, teams will be ranked according to points and this will determine their progression through the tournament.

If two teams are tied on points, the team with the higher goal average (goals for divided by goals against) will be ranked higher.

If goals averages are equal then goal difference (the difference between the goals scored and the goals conceded) will be applied and if this is the same, the result of the match between the teams will be used to determine the higher placed team.

If the result was a draw or there are more than two teams level on points, the team scoring the most goals will be placed higher.

If the two teams are still equal after this, a coin toss will determine the top team.

What if it’s a draw?

Matches in the preliminaries may result in a draw but all play-off and placings games will be played to a result.

If a game is tied at the end of the fourth quarter in any play-off or placing match, extra time of two seven-minute halves will be played.

In the event of a tie remaining at the end of extra time, play will continue until one team leads by two goals.

Preliminaries Stage One (12-14 July)

Teams will compete in four round-robin groups (A, B, C and D) which each consist of four teams.

Teams were assigned to their preliminary groups by seeding based on their world rankings.

The top eight teams were pre-assigned to groups with one team from the 9th-12th seeds and one from the 13th- 16th seeds drawn randomly into each group.

The top three finishers in each group will then progress to the Preliminaries Stage Two to compete for the title.

Group A: Australia, Northern Ireland, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka

Group B: New Zealand, Malawi, Barbados, Singapore

Group C: Jamaica, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, Fiji

Group D: England, Uganda, Scotland, Samoa

Preliminaries Stage Two (15-18 July)

In the second stage of the competition, the top three teams from groups A and B will form group F, and the top three teams from groups C and D will form group G.

The bottom four finishers from groups A-D will compete for 13th-16th places in group E.

Where teams in group F and G have already played each other in the Preliminaries Stage One (i.e. A1 has already played A2 and A3), these results will carry through to the Preliminaries Stage Two.

Play-Offs and Placings (19-21 July)

The teams finishing first and second in groups F and G will go through to the semi-finals, with the top placed team in each group facing the second placed team in the other group.

Groups F and G

The winners of each semi-final will compete for gold in the final, with the losers playing for bronze.

The teams finishing third and fourth in groups F and G will compete for final positions fifth to eighth – third in one group plays fourth in the other – with the winners playing off for fifth place and the losers for seventh.

The teams that finish fifth in groups F and G will play off for ninth and tenth places.

The teams that finish last in groups F and G will play off for 11th and 12 places.

Group E

The top two teams from group E will play off for 13th and 14th places and the bottom two teams will play off for 15th and 16th place.

You can view the full competition schedule here.

Make sure you’re following @NetballSL on Twitter for updates on how our Vitality Netball Superleague stars are getting on at the Vitality Netball World Cup!