Netball tour at Disneyland Paris

During the last week of the Easter holiday, eleven U14 netballers travelled to Disneyland Paris for the annual International Netball festival.

The first morning was spent in Disneyland, exploring the different rides and debating if Miss Stancer’s screams were lounder than Lucy’s! In the afternoon we travelled to Torcy Tennis Centre for the group stages of the netball. Our first game was against Forest School ‘B’, Cheshire. We started strongly with a 24-1 win. Next up was Chancellor’s School ‘B’ from Hatfield. This was another dominant performance from our girls winning 24-0. The next two games were destined to be much tougher, against Chancellor’s and Forest A teams. First up was Chancellor’s School; this game was tighter, although we remained too strong for the opposition, winning 18-5. Our last game of the day was against Forest School ‘A’, who were so far unbeaten as well. We did not start as well, with the game going goal for goal for most of the first half. Changes at half time had a positive effect on the team and we finished 16-12 up, placing us at the top of our group and qualifying us for the quarter finals on day 3.

The second day started with a trip to Walt Disney Studios, and the infamous ‘Tower of Terror’! There may have been just a few shaking legs and screams, but we all survived, ensuring another classic group photo for Miss Manley’s office wall. After spending the rest of the morning in the park, the girls once again headed to Torcy for the second day of netball. An afternoon of coaching workshops followed, lead by Performance Coaches; this gave the girls a chance to experience different coaching styles and to work with girls from other schools.

The third day started with the netball finals. Our quarter final was against Priestlands School, Lymington. This was a tough game, and although we went up by 3 in the first few minutes, we were unable to hold our lead and went down 10-12. This then meant we went in to the play offs for 5th place, against the two A teams we had played the first day. The girls played extremely well in these games, dominating throughout and taking convincing wins 14-4 against Chancellor’s and 22-2 against Forest. This meant we finished a respectable 5th out of 22. We then went to back to the parks for a few more rides and some shopping, before heading to the awards meal. Awards were given for final places as well as the winners of skills tests performed during the coaching workshops. Verity Winsor came away with the award for most long shots scored in 30 seconds…not bad for a WD!

Overall the girls had a great trip, and a fun introduction to touring. They were all a credit to the school, with the England Netball organiser highlighting, “how delightful the Taunton School girls were.”

Lisa Manley
Head of Netball