Confident Sunshine Girls jet off for World Championships

Robert Bailey, Gleaner Writer

Beaming with confidence, the 12-member Jamaica Sunshine Girls squad is scheduled to depart the island today for Singapore, where they will be hoping to secure Jamaica's first ever hold on the World Netball Championships (WNC) title. The WNC will be held from July 3 to 10.

The Jamaicans, who won the bronze medal at the last championships in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2007, have all right to be confident, after playing to a 1-1 series draw with world champions Australia in January.

The Sunshine Girls, who are ranked fourth in the world, also registered an exciting 2-1 series win on home soil against archrivals and third-ranked England in April.

"I have to be confident and I am confident," said Oberon Pitterson, head coach of the Sunshine Girls.

Players confident

"They are very upbeat and they can't wait to start playing in the tournament," Pitterson said. "Everybody is positive and I have had one-and-one meetings with every player and they are ready and they are confident and they are just going to go out there and do Jamaica proud.

"It is just for us to perform on that day and that day is not even the final on the 10th, but to get past Australia on the ninth (in the semi-finals) and that is the big test."

Pitterson, who recently took over the reins as head coach from Connie Francis, added that there are no major injury concerns in the team and everybody is looking forward to the championships.

As part of their build-up, the Jamaicans recently engaged a President's XII team in three simulation matches and Pitterson stated that she was very pleased with the outcome of these games.

"It was about how well they will manage to play three hard games back-to-back. I thought they responded really well and the results were positive and they won all three matches," said Pitterson.

"What was good about it is that all the matches going into the last quarter, coming towards the end, they were very strong and that was what I was looking for," she said.

Pitterson continued: "We also looked at different variations, different combinations and we really pushed it to the limit and we try to get them to focus as if they were playing the real quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals, especially in an environment that had a lot of distractions, and we were able to achieve that."

They have retained six members of the 2007 squad. They are captain Nadine Bryan, vice-captain Sasher-Gaye Henry, Nicole Aiken, Althea Byfield, Romelda Aiken and Paula Thompson.

Jhaniele Fowler, Anna-Kay Griffths, Kimone Tulloch, Kameika Sherwood and Malysha Kelly will be making the trip to the WNC for the first time.

The Jamaicans are drawn in Pool C along with hosts Singapore, South Africa and Botswana.

Annette Daley is Pitterson's assistant; Hyacinth Smith is the team manager; Maureen Spence-Campbell, physiotherapist; Praimanand Singh is the team doctor and the video analyst is Antoinette Irons.