T&T se­nior women's team net­baller Saman­tha Wal­lace and reign­ing Aus­tralia Sun­corp Su­per Net­ball League cham­pi­ons New South Wales Swifts will make the two-hour flight from Syd­ney to Queens­land lat­er this week ahead of the start of the sea­son on Au­gust 1.

This as, all non-Queens­land teams are re­quired to re­lo­cate to Queens­land for part or all of the sea­son, which will still be made up of 14 rounds and a nor­mal fi­nals se­ries.

This year's sea­son has re­ceived an enor­mous boost with the Queens­land Gov­ern­ment throw­ing its sup­port be­hind the com­pe­ti­tion. The com­mit­ment will see the ma­jor­i­ty of match­es, in­clud­ing the en­tire fi­nals se­ries, played across Nis­san Are­na in Bris­bane, the Uni­ver­si­ty of the Sun­shine Coast Sta­di­um and re­gion­al Queens­land.

To en­sure the well­be­ing of ath­letes, sup­port staff and um­pires, this sea­son will be played in a con­densed for­mat.

And in fur­ther ex­cit­ing news for fans, sev­er­al home games will al­so be sched­uled for non-Queens­land clubs based on bor­der re­stric­tions and the lat­est health ad­vice due to the coro­n­avirus.

The first phase of the fix­ture is set to be an­nounced with­in the next five days. This an­nounce­ment comes as the league’s two Vic­to­ri­an teams, the Mel­bourne Vix­ens and Colling­wood Mag­pies, de­part­ed for Queens­land for a two-week quar­an­tine pe­ri­od on Sat­ur­day.

Sun­corp Su­per Net­ball CEO Chris Syming­ton said it’s ex­cit­ing to have the back­ing of the Queens­land Gov­ern­ment.

“This sup­port from the Queens­land Gov­ern­ment will en­sure we’re able to de­liv­er a full 60-match sea­son of the world’s best net­ball to fans all over Aus­tralia and the world, so we thank them im­mense­ly for their sup­port and for ac­com­mo­dat­ing the en­tire league,” he said.

“With less than two weeks un­til the first cen­tre pass of the sea­son, the ex­cite­ment across the league and with­in our fan base is pal­pa­ble and we’re look­ing for­ward to get­ting the 2020 sea­son un­der­way.

“We’re al­so thrilled that loy­al fans across the coun­try will be re­ward­ed with home games and the chance to see their teams live at their lo­cal sta­di­um. These games will, how­ev­er, be sub­ject to the lat­est bor­der re­stric­tions and health ad­vice.

“We un­der­stand the sac­ri­fice our ath­letes, sup­ports staff and um­pires will be mak­ing by re­lo­cat­ing to Queens­land for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od and we will be putting the nec­es­sary struc­tures and process­es in place to en­sure they are all ad­e­quate­ly sup­port­ed dur­ing this time.”

Queens­land Pre­mier An­nasta­cia Palaszczuk said host­ing the sea­son is an­oth­er way Queens­land can help.

“The re­sump­tion of sport is an­oth­er step back to­wards a nor­mal life and we all want to see that,” she said.

“We have close to 37,000 ju­nior play­ers and the op­por­tu­ni­ty for them to see the best of the best play­ing right across the state and be in­spired is in­cred­i­ble.”

Last Sep­tem­ber, the 26-year-old Wal­lace was vot­ed the Nis­san Play­er of the Match af­ter fir­ing the New South Wales Swifts to the crown, 64-47 over Sun­shine Coast Light­ning at the Bris­bane En­ter­tain­ment Cen­tre.

Wal­lace scored 40 goals from 44 at­tempts to end the sea­son with 637 goals from 695 at­tempts for the sec­ond spot be­hind Ja­maican Jhaniele Fowler 709/753, while an­oth­er Ja­maican, Shi­mona Nel­son, was third with 637/724.

The win­ner of the “Play­er of the Year” in the Eng­lish Vi­tal­i­ty Net­ball Su­per League in 2016, Wal­lace, who will start her fourth sea­son with club when the com­pe­ti­tion gets go­ing, now has a three-year ca­reer tal­ly of 1,580 goals from 1,739 at­tempts.