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If the 2017 ANZ Championship season had a theme song surely it would be Bob Dylan's The times they are a-changin'.
Change is in the air, adding plenty of interest to what may be the last ANZ Championship season in its current format. Speculation is rife around why Netball Australia has called for expressions of interest for new teams to be added to next year's competition, with much excitement around the entities who have apparently lodged applications.
With three new teams, Netball Australia may look to break away from its ANZ Championship partners, Netball New Zealand, and run a largely stand-alone competition in 2017 with the possibility of some crossover at finals time. 
This is causing plenty of angst across the ditch, with the most bemusing question put to me on New Zealand radio this week being whether I was concerned such changes would see New Zealand netball go backwards. 
Frankly, that's not Australia's problem to solve. Australian netball's problem lies more in elbowing its way into the crowded broadcast schedule of major pay TV and free-to-air networks at a price that improves, rather than worsens the sport's bottom line. The mooted changes for next year would help solve it by providing more Australian content, which has consistently been at a higher quality throughout the history of the ANZ Championship than the New Zealand content. That can only be good.
Speaking of quality, there are also some rule changes, two of which are designed to make the game more palatable by speeding it up and reducing the amount of whistle. On the face of it, both of these are good. However, at the risk of ignoring Dylan's warning for those who write and criticise to "don't speak too soon/For the wheel's still in spin", I probably should wait for the season to commence before offering an opinion of whether these changes will achieve their desired purpose, but, hey, being cautious has never been my style.
First, the rule around setting of penalties has been relaxed, allowing the team awarded possession to decide whether to wait for the infringing player to set the penalty or to play on quickly. This is really a case of back to the future. For many years the rule was (sensibly) interpreted this way, and for some inexplicable reason it was changed to a far more pedantic interpretation some years ago that was almost embarrassing in its application. Not surprisingly, I reckon this change is good.
The next rule change is designed to have less whistle in the game by not having the umpires blow the whistle after a goal is scored. On the face of it this sounds OK - with around 100 goals scored in most games that's 100 less ear-piercing toots. Dig deeper and it is really just lipstick on a pig. The real problem with too much whistle in our game is in the arcane interpretation of the contact rule, in that it's almost impossible for the casual observer to figure out why the whistle is blown when two players are battling for possession.
Until this is addressed, the problem of too much whistle during play will remain. Not surprisingly I reckon this change is next to useless. Finally some of the most interesting changes this year will be on court. With some big names lost to retirement, injury or pregnancy, it's time for the next generation to step up and shine at the start of this next World Cup cycle.
Despite the fact that Dylan counsels "And there's no tellin; who/That it's namin' ", I am going to put my neck out (again) and name players like NSW Swifts' Maddy Turner, Melbourne Vixens' Alice Teague Neeld and West Coast Fever's Courtney Bruce as players to watch.
Yep, in 2016, it's very much a case of: for the times they are a-changin ???