Netball Super League will be too close to call this year, says Manchester Thunder coach Karen Greig

The Netball Super League is under way and while London Pulse might be viewed as the team to beat, this season is too close to call, according to Karen Greig.

Greig, the head coach of Manchester Thunder, told Sky Sports: "I think it's a really difficult one to say.

"I think Pulse are definitely going to be up there, I also think, looking at Loughborough, even though they didn't make the semi-finals [in the Netball Super Cup], they're always going to be up there with the quality they've got throughout their whole group.

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"It's going to be a good season and the fact that we don't quite know who's going to be in that top four - I don't think you can call it - stands our league in good stead."

The introduction of the new Super Shot rule will also make the league unpredictable. The new regulation will allow teams to score two-goal shots from a dedicated area within the outer edge of the shooting circle during the last five minutes of each of the four quarters.

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Greig explained: "Now with the format that we're actually playing - we're going to be playing 45 minutes of normal netball and 15 minutes of Super Shot netball - it's going to be really hard to say what team is going to stand up and be counted.

"I don't think you can discount London Pulse with the quality they have got through their whole unit, but it will be interesting to see how teams actually apply Super Shot, whether they go early and try and get a bit of a lead and put the pressure on teams trying to catch up with the scores. It will be interesting to see."

Greig's Manchester Thunder get their campaign under way against Loughborough Lightning on Sunday, live on Sky Sports Mix at 6.30pm.

"It's been a really rocky, fragmented pre-season for us," Greig said. "To lose three of our international athletes [to injury] before the season even starts has been critical for us and it's been a lot of adversity and a lot of uncertainty around how we're actually going to tackle it.

"But for us, we're so grateful that we've got that foundation of our pathway and some really exciting youngsters coming through that are able to step into their shoes.

"Hopefully it will be seamless as we go through and there will be a lot of learnings as we go along in these early stages until we get some of our athletes back.

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"It's really exciting to get going with a replay of last year's final. Definitely going to be a challenging one but we're definitely starting in the right way, the AO Arena on the big stage."

Watch the revamped Netball Super League live on Sky Sports. Not got Sky? Get Sky Sports or stream with no contract on NOW.