New South Wales Swifts assistant coach Megan Anderson believes her side has an insider's advantage against her former side Northern Mystics.

Liz Watson, the debutante bolter who came from outside the squad into the starting centre position in the Melbourne Vixens' last premiership team, insists this ANZ Championship is far from a two-horse race. The NSW Swifts and Queensland Firebirds remain the premiership favourites, but the Vixens believe they are timing their run like a Bart Cummings stayer.

For the second time this season the Vixens have thwarted the Fever, setting up a possible return to the play-offs.

Goal attack Susan Pettitt led the NSW Swifts to a 14-goal trans-Tasman netball league win on Saturday over the Adelaide Thunderbirds.

The Canberra Darters have ended their Australian Netball League season in bitter-sweet fashion with a win over the Queensland Fusion on Friday and a comprehensive loss on Saturday.

A full-time female investigator was quietly added to the AFL's integrity unit last month.

The Canberra Darters are looking to get their first win of the ANL season.

Two teams, one play-off spot. The first of their two meetings decided by just one goal. Two rounds left after this Sunday, but, for the Melbourne Vixens and West Coast Fever, equal on wins and separated by less than a single percentage point, this is the one that really counts.

Charismatic Victorian-bred NSW Swifts defender Sharni Layton looms as a key recruiting target in the frenzy for signatures that will follow the final ANZ Championship season, as speculation grows over potential player movement ahead of next year's eight-team national league.

Netball Australia will loosen the reins on its import restrictions and tighten its salary cap observance for next year's revamped competition.

Normality returned to the ANZ Championship after a Saturday of upsets on both sides of the Tasman, as the Melbourne Vixens continued their quest for a top-three finish in the Australian conference with a 69-46 drubbing of the Northern Mystics.

The NSW Swifts missed a chance to move to the top of the ANZ Championship Australian conference when they lost 58-57 to West Coast Fever at Newcastle Entertainment Centre on Saturday night.

Chance Commonwealth Games meeting brings Diamond and Canberra boxer together.

Madi Robinson glanced at the scoreboard about 10 minutes into last Saturday's 12-goal loss to the Queensland Firebirds and felt embarrassed by how few of the defenders' hard-won turnovers had been converted by the strugging attack of which she is part.

More women than men live in poverty in Australia and fewer women participate in sport. Netball Australia wants to do what it can to change that.

The shock result during last year's Netball World Cup came not in a finals game that mattered, but a preliminary round that did not. However, when New Zealand upset the heavily favoured – and eventual champion – Australians in a pool match, they had poked the bear. Similarly, is it the Queensland Firebirds who have been prodded now?

Melbourne Vixens' 2014 premiership coach Simone McKinnis has been endorsed for a contract extension by Netball Victoria president Jenny Sanchez, but insists she will not be distracted from the team focus by any personal uncertainty caused by the establishment of the new national league.

The new-look netball competition will mean more opportunities for more players. But it also might spell the end of the Swifts group as we know it.

No team has won consecutive ANZ Championships in the competition's eight-year history, but Diamonds coach Lisa Alexander believes the end of defending champion Queensland Firebirds' record 21-game winning streak is nothing more than a temporary setback.