THE 2025 Netball Super League season is a mere fortnight away, and in the lead up to the competition Rookie Me Central will be previewing each of the teams and taking a look at how they might go in this new era of English netball.

First cab off the rank is one of the competition’s newbies, the Birmingham Panthers.

Birmingham Panthers 2025 Netball Super League Squad

Sigi Burger
Betsy Creak
Gabby Sinclair
Ruth Hughes
Gabby Marshall
Jess Shaw
Aliyah Zaranyika
Jasmine Brown
Gabby Coffey
Michelle Magee

It is a dawn of the unknown for the Birmingham Panthers. Not only brand new to the Super League, but they are a brand new organisation too, not connected to any existing sporting clubs.

But, luckily for the Panthers they struck gold in the coaching department, managing to sign the very experienced former Severn Stars coach Jo Trip as their inaugural coach.

Unsurprisingly then, a large chunk of the inaugural Panthers squad has come from the now defunct Stars, with six players following Trip from the Stars to the Panthers.

It will be interesting to see what the first choice on court shooting combination is, as on paper there is two obvious goal shooters (Burger and Creak) and one obvious goal attack (Sinclair). However, whether the Panthers knew about the Super Shot or not when they were signing their players, picking someone with a strength in the Super Shot like Sinclair will be a huge asset to the side.

Moving into the midcourt, and tenacity is one word to describe the players in this subgroup of the squad.

Led by Marshall, she and Hughes are two of the players that followed Trip to the Panthers, and will be looking to continue to build on that already established connection between players and coach.

They will be joined in midcourt by another former Star in Shaw, who will be looking to build on a big breakthrough international season and deliver for her side.

When it comes to the defenders, there is an interesting mix of youth and experience. Former Stars Magee and Brown will be joined by former Maverick Zaranyika and young Gabby Coffey, with Coffey in particular one to watch and see how she adapts to the English league.