Netball feeling the heat

Robert Bailey, Gleaner Writer

Local netball is feeling the heat from the state of emergency in Kingston and St Andrew.

The Jamaica Netball Association's (JNA) main mid-year fund-raising activity, Sunshine Evening, which was set for today at the Assembly Hall of the University of the West Indies, has been postponed and no new date has been decided.

Sonia Hamilton, chief executive officer of the JNA, said yesterday that the state of emergency has also affected the operations of the JNA offices located at the National Arena.

"It (fund-raiser) is a big loss to us," said Hamilton. "But we are hoping that we can recoup our losses and just have our friends and supporters still come out to give us the necessary support whenever we set the new date."

She added: "We are not able to access our offices because the security forces are currently using the National Arena, and so we are not allowed to go in and therefore we have to be on the telephone keeping in touch with players and the managers of the different squads."

Adverse effect

Hamilton also noted all the players, coaches and managers of various squads are safe, but stated that the current situation has had an adverse effect on their training programmes.

The Sunshine Girls are currently preparing for a three-Test series against Australia in Australia and a two-Test series against New Zealand in August. The Connie Francis-coached team will then journey to India in October for the Commonwealth Games before moving on to England to take part in the Fast Net Series.

Hamilton said there were other facilities (outside the National Stadium) for the netballers to train but there was a lot of uncertainty and they felt it was unwise to have the players out too late.

"It would not be sensible to ask people to turn up at this point in time because our training takes place in the evenings and into the nights and we are trying to ensure that nobody has to be on the road at that time," she said.