Common, mostly minor, and the serious injuries are uncommonEmerging evidence
In community netball there are about 13.8 to 14 injuries of any kind per 1,000 hours played, and at the 2019 World Cup "2/3 of injuries did not result in time-loss". In 2016, Australian community netball insurance paid out on about 3 claims per 1,000 participants. Across 46 studies, "Many authors stated that most netball injuries are minor", though they defined minor in different ways.
Physiotherapy researchers at La Trobe University put it plainly: "But what we can say from the limited evidence available is the overall risk of knee and joint injury in community netball is low." Each study counted injuries its own way, so these figures can't be compared directly.
Sources 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Ankles are hurt more often, but knees cost the mostStrong evidence
Across 46 studies, "Injuries to the ankle and knee were the most common (in 19 studies)", with the ankle 13% to 84% and the knee 8% to 50% of injuries. In professional Australian netball the knee was 15.7% of injuries that needed medical attention. Knee injuries were 42% of successful insurance claims in Australia in 2016 and 56.9% of claim costs in Victoria in 1999. In the UK Superleague, matches carried far more injuries per hour than training (41.12 against 1.10 per 1,000 hours).
Sources 6, 8, 4, 9, 10
Landing is where most knee injuries happenEmerging evidence
Netball's footwork rule holds a landing in place: after landing on one foot, a player may step with the other foot, lift the landing foot and must "pass or shoot before the landing foot is regrounded", and most netball landings are on one leg. Across the adult studies, "Landing was the most reported situation of knee injury, representing 46.6% of all knee injuries".
In two video series of elite ACL injuries, "Seventeen of the ACL injuries occurred from jump-landing actions and only two from cutting manoeuvres", most often braking hard after a high pass on a wide, two-footed landing with a nearly straight knee; in another 16, the player was knocked off balance in the air, or landed well and then turned and leaned the trunk without moving the feet. These are descriptive video studies: they show patterns, not causes.
Sources 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16
The ACL: uncommon for any one player, but netball's serious knee injuryEmerging evidence
"Anterior cruciate ligament rupture was the most common diagnosis" among 4,596 Australian netball hospital admissions (16.5%, at an average age of 27), from data for 2000 to 2004. Netball is among the sports with the most ACL reconstructions in Australia, and in New Zealand "netball, rugby and football accounting for the highest number of injuries", with the fastest rise in girls aged 15 to 19 (up 120% in a decade). These are counts of operations, not rates per player; in population data more men than women have ACL reconstructions. Netball Australia's insurance data put ACL injury at "approximately 25% of serious injuries".
Across sports, female athletes injure the ACL about 1.7 times as often per game or session as male athletes. Most of a netballer's knee injuries are not the ACL: it was 6.4% of knee injuries in Australia's high-performance athletes.
Sources 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23
Who gets knee pain from netballEmerging evidence
Adults and older teenagers have the most knee and ankle sprains; children hurt their arms, wrists and hands more. In New Zealand, knee injury claims in 10 to 14 year olds rose 2.5-fold over a decade, and Netball New Zealand reports "ACC accepted 6,514 netball-related injury claims for 10 to 14-year-olds in 2025, almost 1,700 more than the next-highest age group" (ACC is New Zealand's accident insurer). In one community club, a previous injury went with about 7 times the odds of a leg injury over the season, an association.
In a review and expert consensus, poor landing technique was the top risk factor to fix in women's netball.
Sources 6, 1, 24, 25, 26
When a scan matters, and what tendon scans meanEmerging evidence
After an injury, the Ottawa rule in the warning signs (you can't take 4 steps, or you're 55 or over) decides who needs an X-ray. The NHS says a GP can "refer you to hospital for a scan or specialist treatment", and a dislocated kneecap usually needs X-rays even if it went back. A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan is for a suspected ACL, meniscus or kneecap injury where the result changes treatment.
For kneecap and tendon pain a scan rarely helps: "Sonographic hypoechoic regions were present in 35 of 250 (14%) patellar tendons in athletes who had never had anterior knee pain" (changes on ultrasound in tendons that didn't hurt).
Sources 27, 28, 29
What usually happensEmerging evidence
The NHS says knee pain "can often be treated at home. You should start to feel better in a few days", and "After 2 weeks, most sprains and strains will feel better", though severe ones can take months. Jumper's knee improves over months: in the largest trial, symptom scores rose by 28 points in 24 weeks with staged loading.
In Osgood-Schlatter, "After 12 weeks, 80% reported a successful outcome, which increased to 90% at 12 months", and 16% were back in sport at 12 weeks and 69% at 12 months, in one study without a comparison group. After an ACL reconstruction, high-performance Australian athletes took a median of 369 days to return to sport, and 62% of club and community netballers went back to netball.
Sources 27, 30, 31, 32, 20, 33
When it isn't netball: the causes the warning signs cover
Some knee pain has causes netball didn't create, or needs more than a plan, and the warning signs follow the pages behind them. A knee that changed shape, swelled fast or went with a pop needs A&E, in the words of the NHS knee pain, dislocated kneecap, sprains and strains and meniscus tear pages, and the Ottawa knee rule, tested in emergency departments, picks out who needs an X-ray. A pop at the front of the knee with a knee you can't straighten can be a torn quadriceps or patellar tendon, as the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) describes, and in a child the bony bump or a sleeve of cartilage can pull away instead, as two case series describe. A hot, swollen knee can be an infection, as the NHS septic arthritis page says, and a child with knee pain and a limp follows the NHS limping page.
A swollen, throbbing calf can be a blood clot or a burst Baker's cyst, and sudden breathlessness a clot in the lungs, as the NHS pages on deep vein thrombosis (DVT), Baker's cyst and pulmonary embolism say; fainting or chest pain on court needs a 999 call, as the NHS fainting and chest pain pages say; and pain that travels down from the back is sciatica, in the NHS's words. A knee that is locked, a tear after a significant twist, a knee that keeps giving way or a loose inner knee follows a British Medical Journal (BMJ) guideline panel, two trials in younger adults, a European meniscus consensus, an NHS programme on knee keyhole surgery, the NHS page on why ACL surgery is done, a UK trial of reconstruction against rehab, an international consensus on ACL injuries in children, a US ligament guideline, the AAOS and a review of inner knee ligament injuries. Repeat kneecap dislocations follow nidirect and a population study; growing knees, NHS trust leaflets, the AAOS, children's physiotherapists and NHS inform; bone pain, the NHS bone cancer page; kneecap pain, NHS inform; and swelling in several joints or long morning stiffness, NICE's arthritis guideline (NICE is the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) and the NHS rheumatoid arthritis page.
Sources 27, 28, 30, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 34, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92
