Inside Sport has interviewed plenty of netballers over the years. Common among them all has been their dedication and strict work ethic, week in, week out.

Back in June 2013, we met up with Queensland Firebird Chelsea Pitman (who is now Chelsea Locke, and who played for New Zealand outfit the Pulse this year). Back then she described Wednesday as “an extremely hard day. We start about 3.45pm and finish 6.30pm. We do strength work, then court work. The strength session is a ‘45-minute-get-in-there-get-out’, working on our legs. Because of my knees – I’ve had a reco and clean-out on my left and two clean-outs on my right – I’ll so single-leg squatting, super-set with a box jump.”

It’s a gruelling profession, netball. Sure, the majority of players are health demons who are ultra-competitive to boot, but maintaining the strength and stamina required at the elite level is still bloody hard work.

Another Firebird, Kim Ravaillion, just this year told us that a netballer’s gym session “is all about power and animal movement, and pushing ourselves to the limit. We’ll work on every part of our body in these sessions. We’re buggered in the afternoon after we’ve finished, but it’s all about working under fatigue while also making sure we’re fresh again by the time game day comes around.”

The best aspect of netball’s newly announced pay increase for elite-level players isn’t necessarily the fact that more coin will be going into players’ bank accounts. From 2017 each club will have up to $675,000 to spend on its list of ten contracted athletes, meaning the average salary for a National Netball League player will be $67,500. The minimum salary will more than double from the previous ANZ Championship deal, from just $13,250 to $27,375.

Despite the pay rise, more and more players will be involving themselves in off-the-court careers to supplement their netball incomes, and will have the time and freedom to do so: 10am-4pm through the week has been ruled out as far as training is concerned.

This is great for players like Ravaillion, who also told me earlier this year about a health and fitness program herself and Queensland and Diamonds squad-mate Gretel Tippet had put together. “We launched it in 2014; we’ve had a few good client results from it so far and we’re really happy with how it’s all going,” she said. “It will be something for us to focus on after netty, but also a tool we can use to maintain our fitness throughout our playing careers.”

At Netball Australia’s announcement of a landmark agreement between NA, the Australian Netball Players’ Association and the eight participating clubs in the newly named National Netball League, former Australian Diamond and Melbourne Vixens captain Bianca Chatfield (now heading up the Australian Netball Players’ Association), emphasised pay increases are just part of the story. “Our ambition throughout this whole process has been to achieve that perfect balance between semi-professionalism, with the best possible conditions for our athletes.”

Like we said, netballers are realists, with superstar Laura Geitz among them. When I chatted to the Australian captain (who has pressed paused on her career to start a family) in early 2015, the Spartan ambassador and clothing range and netball clinic entrepreneur hinted it would be a long time before netballers were taking the court and earning a proper living from it. And she was fine with that, more than aware of the pitfalls of full-time professionalism.

“I definitely don’t like to be seen whinging about how we don’t get paid as much as the blokes,” Geitz said at the time. “That’s not what I’m about. I’m extremely proud of the game we have and the women associated with our game. Probably what I’m most proud of, though, is the fact we play for the love of it. Sometimes you see that too much money is involved in sport. That’s when people's love for the game and other things – other morals, other values – can disappear.”