Netball Drills

The basic netball drills are a passing rally, a landing-and-pivot drill, a lead to get free, a shooting set in the circle, and a marking drill at the legal distance. Each one isolates a single thing a player does in a real match, gives enough repetition to feel it change, and finishes with the player in a position they would actually hold in a game. A drill that skips any of those three tends to look busy without moving the scoreboard.

A quick orientation for anyone newer to the game before the drills get specific. Netball is played seven a side on a court split into three thirds, and each of the seven positions can only play in certain areas. Only the Goal Shooter (GS) and Goal Attack (GA) may shoot, and only from inside the shooting circle, a semi-circle of 4.9 m radius at each end. Only the Goal Keeper (GK) and Goal Defence (GD) defend inside that circle. The Centre (C) links the court but cannot enter either circle, while the Wing Attack (WA) and Wing Defence (WD) feed and defend through the middle.

Three rules shape every drill that follows. You cannot run with the ball, you have three seconds to pass or shoot, and a defender must stand back from the ball carrier. World Netball publishes the full court and position breakdown in its facilities and equipment guide(opens in new tab).

Match the Drill to the Skill That Let You Down

Start with whatever cost you the most in last week's match. If passes kept getting picked off, the session leans on passing under pressure and getting free. If your team gave away penalties on defence, the marking drill earns the time. If shooters missed under a tall defender, the circle work comes first. Netball rewards honesty here. The same player can throw a clean centre pass and then panic into a footwork call two minutes later, so the drill worth the court time is the one that targets that gap.

Ask what the five basic skills in netball are and most coaches land on the same list: passing, catching, footwork, shooting, and defending. Some split out intercepting or pivoting, but those five cover the game. Every drill in this guide trains one of them, which is why the sections that follow are grouped the same way.

• Passing. The chest, shoulder, and bounce passes that move the ball through the thirds, thrown and released inside three seconds.
• Catching. Driving to meet the ball, taking it at full stretch, and getting free of a marker to receive in the first place.
• Footwork. Landing legally, establishing a landing foot, and pivoting to turn the ball forward without travelling.
• Shooting. The high, repeatable action that drops the ball through the ring, used only by the GS and GA inside the circle.
• Defending. Marking at the legal distance, denying the lead, and timing the intercept that turns defence into attack.

Footwork sits at the centre of all five. You catch on the move, so a clean landing protects the pass, the shot, and the drive. Get the feet right and the rest of the game has somewhere to stand.

A single drill sharpens one skill. A sequence builds a netballer. The session below is the backbone most coaches use for a 75-minute training night, ordered so the body warms up through passing and footwork before the high-intensity contest and the game. This ordered, whole-session view is the piece a flat drill list cannot give you, and it separates a session that flows from one that stalls between drills.

The Shape of a Netball Training Session

• Minutes 0-10, warm-up and ball work. Dynamic movement to raise the heart rate, then pairs passing so hands and feet are going before the skill work starts.
• Minutes 10-25, footwork and passing. One-two landings, pivoting to find the pass, and a three-second passing channel. Groove the legal landing before you add any pace.
• Minutes 25-45, unit skills. Split the squad by position. Shooters and feeders work the circle while defenders mark and read at the legal distance. The longest block, because this is where matches are won.
• Minutes 45-65, conditioned game. A small-sided or full-court game with the three-second rule strictly umpired so the skills get stress-tested under match pressure. For ways to bend the game rules toward one skill, our small-sided games design guide shows how to set the constraints.
• Minutes 65-75, cool-down and debrief. Light passing, a stretch, and two clear coaching points so players leave knowing one thing to keep.

Coaching by Position Without Losing the Group

The hardest part of a netball session is keeping a full squad busy when shooters, midcourters, and defenders all need different work. A few patterns hold up:

• Split into units. Send the circle players to one end for shooting and feeding, the defenders to the other for marking and intercepts, and rotate the midcourt between them. Every player works their own position. No one queues for a single drill.
• Feed, do not lecture. A coach with a ball feeding a station produces more repetitions per minute than a coach talking courtside. Save the talking for the short reset between rounds.
• No long lines. Six players waiting for one feed is a queue, not a drill. Split into more pairs and more balls before you settle for a single-feed format.

Save this skeleton once and it carries across a whole term. The session planning framework covers how to weight the blocks from week to week so a season touches every skill enough times for the habits to stick. Here is the session in one view. Edit any block to fit your squad size or the court time you get.

Passing is how the ball travels the 30.5 m length of a netball court, three seconds at a time, with no dribble and no run. A team that passes flat and into space pulls defenders out of shape; a team that throws soft, looping balls feeds the intercept. The drills below build the three core passes a netballer needs: the two-handed chest pass for short, quick balls, the one-handed shoulder pass for distance, and the bounce pass that beats a tall defender into the circle. Add the ones your players need to the plan as you read.

Footwork is the rule that makes netball netball. You may receive the ball on one foot or two, and the foot you land on becomes your landing foot. You can step with the other foot and pivot on the landing foot, but you cannot re-ground it, drag it, or hop before the ball has gone. Break that and the umpire calls footwork and gives a free pass away. The World Netball footwork rule(opens in new tab) sets out the one-foot and two-foot landings in full. These drills groove a legal landing until it holds up at full speed.

A pass is only as good as the player getting free to catch it. In the tight space of a third, an attacker who stands still is an attacker who never gets the ball. The drills below build the lead that drives onto a pass, the dodge that loses a marker, and the timing to catch on the move and on repeat. Getting free is the skill that turns three players standing around into an attack that flows.

What Is the 4-Point Drill in Netball?

The four-point drill is a four-corner passing and movement drill. You set four cones as corners around a third with two or three players at each, then start two balls in opposing corners. A player from a corner without a ball drives into the middle to receive from the corner on their right, passes on to the next corner anticlockwise, and joins that line. Both balls move at once, so players read the play, time the drive, and catch under a little fatigue. It is a favourite warm-up because it rehearses the lead and the catch dozens of times in a few minutes. The full setup and the common timing error are in the card below.

Goals win matches, and in netball only two players can score them. The Goal Shooter and Goal Attack are the only players allowed to shoot, and only from inside the goal circle. A goal counts when the ball passes cleanly through the ring from a shot taken inside that circle, as the World Netball scoring rule(opens in new tab) sets out. The drills below build a high, repeatable action, the range to score from the whole circle, and the nerve to shoot with a defender's hands over the ball.

What Is the 3-Post Drill in Netball?

The three-post drill, sometimes called the three-feed drill, is a shooting drill for one shooter and three feeders. The feeders space themselves around the edge of the shooting circle. The shooter drives to a feeder, takes a high pass while turning in the air to land facing the post, passes on to the next feeder, then sprints back toward the post to receive again and shoot. The feeders keep the ball moving so the shooter never stops, which trains shooting on the move and under fatigue. The key is to land facing the post every time, so you are square and ready to release. The card below has the rotation and the readiness marker.

Defending in netball is a contest you win at arm's length. You cannot bump or hold an opponent, and you cannot crowd the ball carrier. A defender's nearer foot has to stay at least 0.9 m (3 ft) back from the ball carrier's landing foot before they can defend the ball, the obstruction rule the World Netball rules(opens in new tab) measure on the ground. Step inside that distance over the ball and you give away a penalty pass. The drills below build legal-distance marking, the read for an intercept, and the pressure-then-rebound work the GK and GD live on.

Planning one strong training night is the easy part. Keeping a trusted, organised set of drills that feeds a whole season is the work that lasts. Whatever you pulled from the buckets above lands in the planner here, ready to total into one training night you can print, copy, or hand to an assistant.

The drills here earn their keep when you can pull the ones your squad needs in seconds, sorted by skill, level, and the position they serve. A folder of screenshots works until a second coach joins or the squad grows, and then the hunt for that one good intercept drill eats the warm-up. Our guide to organising a drill library covers tagging so a collection stays usable, and the drill progression design guide shows how to sequence repetitions so they carry into a match.

Coach a club or several teams and the admin piles up. Striveon's drill library holds every netball drill with your own notes, filed by skill area and the position it serves, so the right session is two taps away when you reach the court. An assistant can pull it too. Athlete development tracking marks each player off as they move from a first legal landing to scoring under a live defender, which turns the readiness markers in this guide into a record you can see. The wider workflow, where a season plan, a training night, and each player's progress sit together, runs through structured training sessions.

The right drill is the one that fits the player standing in front of you. Below, the same drills are sorted into three levels, and the more useful column is the one that tells you a player has earned the step up. Trust the readiness markers over the labels. A junior who lands cleanly but still fouls on defence is ready for harder footwork and a beginner at marking. Follow the gap. The age group on the team sheet matters less.

School and Youth: Legal Habits First

Younger players, including those coming through modified small-sided versions of the game like High 5, need clean basics before tactics. Spend the bulk of the time on partner passing, the one-two landing, the lead to get free, and close-range shooting. Keep the pace slow enough that the footwork holds, because a habit learned wrong here is hard to unpick later.

Ready for the junior step when a player lands legally without travelling, releases the ball inside three seconds, and can get free with a basic dodge. That is the floor the rest of the game is built on.

Junior and Club: Range and Live Pressure

Club players have the basics and need range and a live opponent. This is where the shoulder pass across a third, the dodge against a real defender, the intercept read, range-ladder shooting, and marking at the legal distance earn the time. Add a defender to drills that started cooperative.

Ready for senior work when a player holds a legal landing at speed, defends at 0.9 m without an obstruction call, and lands six of ten shots from around the circle.

Senior and Adult: Skills Under Fatigue

Senior and adult players own the skills and now sharpen them under match fatigue. The four-point drill, the three-post feed and shoot, shooting over a live defender, and the defend-and-box-out drill build the split-second quality that decides a tight game. The trap at this level is letting footwork and the 3-foot discipline slip once players are tired, so keep a short basics block in even the hardest session.

The progression below puts the levels, their core drills, and the readiness markers side by side so you can place a player at a glance. Print it to tick players off as they move up.

The drills above scale across every group a coach runs, from a school club to an adult league. The emphasis shifts more than the drill does. The notes below adapt the same skills for beginners, for kids, and for adult recreational players, the three searches that come up most.

Netball Drills for Beginners

A beginner needs the rules in their feet before anything else. Spend most of the time on the one-two landing, partner passing at a comfortable distance, and a simple lead to get free. Keep shooting close to the post so the action grooves without strain. Slow the whole thing down. A beginner who lands legally and passes inside three seconds has the two habits that let them play a real game, and everything else builds on that.

Netball Drills for Kids

Kids learn fast when the drill feels like a game and the queues are short. Keep groups small, give every child a ball where you can, and turn the four-point drill into a race or a count. Praise a clean landing as loudly as a goal, because the footwork rule is the part young players most need to enjoy rather than fear. Short rounds and plenty of touches beat long explanations every time.

Netball Drills for Adults

Adult recreational players often return to netball after years away and want match-realistic work without the drilling feeling like school. Lean on the conditioned game, the three-post shooting drill, and live marking, so the skills come wrapped in a contest. Build in more rest between high-intensity rounds, and let the legal-distance marking drill do double duty as a reminder of the obstruction rule that catches returning players out.