NSL stars picked for Vitality Roses and Future Roses programmes

Spread across seven teams in the league, players in the Vitality Roses and Future Roses programmes will come together for UK-based training camps and competitive opportunities at home and overseas.

Five new athletes have joined the Vitality Roses programme for the first time with four of them moving up from last year’s Future Roses.

London Pulse duo Berri Neil and Alicia Scholes along with Team Bath’s Jayda Pechova and Loughborough Lightning’s Emma Thacker have all moved up and join Sasha Glasgow from West Coast Fever from Suncorp Super Netball in the Vitality Roses group.

Speaking about the up and coming talent joining the programme, Head Coach Jess Thirlby commented: “Being able to reward and recognise our young breakthrough talent such as Jayda, Berri, Alicia and Emma brings a new energy to the programme and helps to keep driving the competition and ultimately signals that we are beginning to turn the tide in uncovering the depth needed for us to be successful in the years to come. All of them have had great seasons both within the Future Roses programme and in their respective club colours in the Netball Super League.”

Pulse defender Halimat Adio returns to the programme for the first time since 2021-22, meanwhile, Manchester Thunder captain Natalie Metcalf and former Thunder shooter Eleanor Cardwell have been selected for the eighth consecutive year and remain the only two players to have been selected onto the programme every year since its inception.

The Future Roses group is an exciting mix of athletes who have enjoyed successful seasons across the Netball Performance League (NPL) and are beginning to break through into the NSL – those include Bath’s Phoebe Maslen, Thunder’s Harriet Jones and Pulse’ Freya Henshall and Jade Popoola.

Six athletes have been elevated from the Roses Academy into the Future Roses and seven of the athletes named amongst the Futures are eligible for the Netball World Youth Cup in 2025.

David Parsons, Performance Director at England Netball, commented: “We have seen the impact that training and competing on the full-time Vitality Roses programme can have on the development of our elite athletes and on the success of the national team. We see this programme as being a competitive advantage for England over our competitor nations. As we reach the end of one cycle with the Netball World Cup this summer, we turn towards the 2026 Commonwealth Games and the 2027 Netball World Cup, both to be held in Australia. If we are to continue our progress and to be successful in those tournaments our preparation must start now and the naming of this group for the start of the new cycle with the addition of some young exciting talent to a cohort of experienced athletes gives us great cause for optimism.

“Furthermore, seeing the progression of a handful of young athletes out of the enhanced Future Roses programme into the full-time Roses programme reminds us how important it is to keep developing the pipeline of talent that sits beneath the senior team. We’re therefore hugely excited by the group of young athletes that we are naming in the Future Roses.”

Vitality Roses programme

Future Roses programme

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