Free Netball scoreboard

Why score Netball with ScoreZen

• ✓One-tap scoring, built for Netball
• ✓Share the live score by QR code or link
• ✓Free for spectators — no app to install to watch
• ✓Keeps working if the connection drops
• ✓34 sports, tournaments and standings included

How Netball scoring works

Every goal is worth one point, however far the shot travels. Only the Goal Shooter and Goal Attack may score, and only when the shot is taken entirely from inside the goal circle, its line included. The shooter has three seconds, must respect the footwork rule and may not touch the ground outside the circle during the shot. With no backboard behind the 380 mm ring, the ball has to enter from above and drop all the way through; a shot deflected by a defender that still drops in counts. Defenders may not shake the goalpost or touch the ball once it is dropping towards the ring. In the official Fast5 variant, shots are worth one, two or three points depending on where the shooter stands, and all goals are doubled during the final 90 seconds of each quarter.

Match format

An international match runs four quarters of 15 minutes of playing time, with teams changing ends every quarter. Intervals last 4 minutes after the first and third quarters, and half-time lasts 12 minutes (8 by agreement between organiser and teams). Rule 21 of the 2024 edition expressly allows other levels to adapt these timings, so school and community matches are often shorter. World Netball also codifies Fast5, a television-friendly short format: five players a side, four 6-minute quarters, rolling substitutions, multi-point shooting zones, and a centre pass that goes to the team that just conceded instead of alternating.

How to win

The team with more goals after four quarters wins. When a competition requires a winner and scores are level, extra time follows a 4-minute break: two halves of up to 7 minutes with a one-minute turnaround. If the tie persists, play simply continues until one team leads by two goals. In Fast5 the tie-breaker is one extra minute, then a golden goal.

Recommended ScoreZen setup

In ScoreZen, set up netball in simple-points mode: tap +1 per goal, with 4 timed periods of 15 min. The Casual preset shortens the period length, and you can set the number and length of periods manually — handy for Fast5-style games played over 6-minute quarters. There is no target score: end the match when time runs out and the leading team wins.

How a netball goal is actually counted

Netball keeps one number: goals. A goal counts when the ball passes above and completely through the ring after a shot by the Goal Shooter or the Goal Attack, from any point inside the goal circle, its lines included. That circle is a semi-circle of 4.9 m radius; the ring, 380 mm across, is fixed at the top of a goalpost 3.05 m high. Any other player who puts the ball through scores nothing.

Two traps. A defender who deflects a shot and sees it drop through has conceded a goal all the same. And since the 2024 edition, a shot counts even when the whistle to end a period or hold time came after the ball left the shooter's hands — under the 2020 wording that same goal was refused. Nothing whistles for the goal itself: the umpires raise one arm vertically, and the next whistle you hear is the one starting the centre pass. Record on the arm, not on the noise.

Time can stretch. A penalty pass awarded in the attacking goal circle before the timekeeper's signal is still taken, after the umpire has ended the period. Interference with a shot brings a penalty pass, and a shot that drops anyway still counts. Record the unsuccessful shots too: the rules ask for them, and that column is the coach's shooting percentage at half time.

(World Netball, Rules of Netball 2024 Edition: rule 1 for court and goalpost, then rules 2.3, 5.5, 9.1 to 9.5 and 9.7.)

The centre pass tally, the netball record everyone forgets

Play restarts after every goal with a centre pass, taken alternately by the Centre of each team. Alternately, not by the team that just conceded. That one word is the most misunderstood thing in netball scoring, and the reason the scorers keep a centre pass column.

The rules put the tally in your hands: record the centre passes each team takes, call the correct one when an umpire appeals to you, signal the direction after a stoppage, and notify the umpires when a wrong centre pass is indicated. Both umpires should check it with the scorers at the start and end of every period of play, and either of them may hold time mid-quarter to come and ask you.

What you record is the pass taken, not the pass pointed at: before the whistle that ends a period, a centre pass is ruled not to have been taken if the ball is still in the Centre's hands, if an opponent knocks it out of them, or if a sanction owed against the other team has not been taken. Keep that column clear of the goals column. Stoppages are where tallies die: an injury changes nothing on the score, but the restart still comes out of your sheet, since you signal the direction. Extra time too, each half beginning with the team entitled to the next centre pass.

(World Netball, Rules of Netball 2024 Edition, rules 2.7, 5.5, 8.1, 8.2, 8.5 and 8.7.)

The numbers change with the level: school, club, league, FAST5

International netball is four quarters of 15 minutes, with four-minute intervals between the first and second and between the third and fourth, and a half time of 12 minutes, or eight if the event organiser and both teams agree. Teams change ends every quarter, which is what turns a paper sheet upside down: head your columns with team names, never left and right.

Below that level the rules let the competition move the numbers. Time may be played in halves rather than quarters, up to 20 minutes each; quarters and intervals may be shorter; extra time requirements may vary; and a smaller competition should still appoint at least one scorer and one timekeeper. For primary school beginners the rules openly invite more: a lower goalpost, a smaller ball, a modified game. Read your regulations before the pen touches the sheet.

Tied at full-time with a winner needed, extra time is a four-minute interval, then two halves of equal length not exceeding seven minutes each, one-minute half time, change of ends. Still level, and a visual signal goes on the official bench while play continues until one team leads by two goals: your sheet, not the clock, ends it.

Then the formats where a goal is not worth one. In FAST5, five playing positions and five players on court, quarters of six minutes: a shot with ground contact in the inner circle (a 3.5 m semi-circle inside the goal circle) scores 1 goal point, from the outer circle 2, and with no ground contact in the goal circle at all — from the goal third — 3, everything doubling during the Power Play Period, the last 90 seconds of each quarter. Australia's Suncorp Super Netball runs its own two-point Super Shot, from a zone that starts 3 m out from the post and is 1.9 m wide, active in the final five minutes of each quarter; nothing of the sort exists in the international rules. England's Netball Super League activated a two-goal Super Shot of its own for the relaunched 2025 season.

(World Netball, Rules of Netball 2024 Edition, rules 2.1, 2.2, 2.5 to 2.8 and 21; World Netball, Rules of FAST5 Netball 2022, rules F1, F2, F3 and F9; Netball Australia, Suncorp Super Netball Rules of the Game, rule 7.6; England Netball for the Netball Super League.)

What ScoreZen changes for netball

You score from your phone: the goals of each team and the quarter, on one screen, with a minus and an undo for the goal you counted a beat too fast. One thumb, no flip board to walk round, no numbers shouted across the hall.

Then you share the match with a link, or a QR code taped to the hall door. Parents, grandparents and the injured player follow live, free, unlimited, with no account. TV mode fills a screen or a television, the transparent overlay drops the score into OBS, and the A4 score sheet prints with a row per quarter and a final score, for whatever paper your competition requires.

School gyms with one bar of signal are normal. Open the match while you still have a connection and ScoreZen keeps counting without a network, then resynchronises when the signal returns. For a tournament it runs knockout, championship, pools plus bracket, Swiss system, best-of-3 and best-of-5 series, and rotating teams.

A single QR code covers the whole tournament: you launch the matches that are ready, then whoever is at a court scans it, finds the match on that court and takes over the scoring while you watch every court from the bench. Afterwards the Replay summary and the Story image are shareable, the club site embeds the widget, the season exports to CSV, an ICS feed fills the calendar and the read-only public API needs no key. 34 sports, 25 languages. Three trial matches free for life, then one payment of €1.99for life; clubs run on €4.99, €9.99or €29.99a month.

Frequently asked questions