Sunshine Girls look to end series on a high

Robert Bailey, Gleaner Writer

Beaten, battered and bruised, Jamaica's Sunshine Girls will be playing for pride when they oppose top-ranked Australia in today's final match in their three-Test series in Queensland, starting 12 midnight.

The Connie Francis-coached team trail 2-0 in the series following their humiliating 69-42 defeat to the Australians on Wednesday in Sydney.

The Jamaicans were also beaten 59-39 by the same opponents in their opening game.

Improve on our attack

However, Annette Daley, assistant coach of the Sunshine Girls, is expecting a much better performance from the team because they want to end the series on a high.

"It would be a challenge for us to win, but when we looked at two quarters of the last game that we actually competed, we lost those quarters by two goals," said Daley in an interview with The Gleaner yesterday.

"The girls are also pretty upbeat because they were very disappointed in their performance when they saw the replays of the matches, but I know that they believe in themselves that they can win this match," Daley said.

The assistant coach added that one of their main aims going into that match was to "make sure that we score off every centre pass" and play a good, all-round defensive game.

"We want to make sure that we improve on our attack because we need to score a lot more goals in the game," she said.

Daley added: "We are allowing the Australians to get too many easy attempts on goal and so we will have to ensure that we maintain our focus for the entire game."

'We want to make sure that we improve on our attack because we need to score a lot more goals in the game.'