The Mount Gambier Netball Association (MGNA) is entering teams in the Nunga Netball Carnival for the first time in the Netball SA carnival’s history.

The SA Nunga Netball Carnival, which has run for 20 years, will take place in the Netball SA Stadium in Mile End on October 6 and 7.

Registration is this Sunday at the Mount Gambier Netball Association courts at 10.30am for any interested Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander players and officials.

All players are encouraged to bring sneakers as there is a game preceding registration followed by a free barbecue.

Mount Gambier Netball Association president Cindy Launer said the MGNA decided to take on the initiative after being approached by interested members of the local Aboriginal community.

“We have pretty much taken it on board and working together with a group of Aboriginal locals,” she said.

“It is juniors at this point in time, we will look to see how successful this is this year and then start looking at entering senior teams.

“We are looking at any Nunga or Aboriginal person no matter where you are from in Australia, if you are living in the district come along and register.

“We have had a young artist do a design for us that we are going to use, it is going to be on the uniforms.”

Mrs Launer said it was a thrilling milestone for the association and the Limestone Coast region.

“It is really, really exciting for our region because for 20 years Nunga carnival has been happening and we as a region would really like to showcase what we have got in our region to other regions,” she said.

“I think we are really lucky here in our region there are people from Victoria who identify as either Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, they can come across here to us as long as they play in our district area and certainly join in.

“We are just hoping to get people interested and pretty much just trying to find some businesses to sort of back the initiative.

“Collins Court Butchers has come on board so far, they are sponsoring us so that is a nice sponsor to have and they are really good for getting behind great initiatives so we are pretty lucky for them to come on board this far.”