Sunshine Girls beat Wales in warm-up

Robert Bailey, Gleaner Writer

Jamaica's Sunshine Girls recorded an easy 49-26 victory over Wales yesterday in a practice game, as they continued preparing for their opening World Netball Championships match against South Africa.

The Oberon Pitterson-coached Jamaicans were hardly pushed to the limit by their world number 13-ranked opponents, in a match played in four 10-minute quarters.

The Jamaicans, who won the bronze medal at the last championships in 2007 in Auckland, New Zealand, led 13-6 at the end of the first quarter and 32-11 at half-time.

Goal shooter Jhaniele Fowler, who was given an extended work-out by the coaching staff, shot 28 goals from 33 attempts. Jamaica's other scorers were Romelda Aiken (11 from 13), Ann-Kay Griffiths (six from six) and Jodian Ffrench-Kentish (four from four).

Annette Daley, assistant coach of the Sunshine Girls, was satisfied with the team's effort .

"I am pleased with the performance because the girls are coming from a long travel and, therefore, they are just getting back into the game mode," said Daley.

"I think they started pretty strong in the first half and so we were able to rotate the players and I thought overall it was good," she said.

Daley added: "We are going to sit and analyse this game because I think that there are some things that we may have missed while we actually watched the game ... . We can make the necessary adjustments by looking at things that just didn't work for us. We can correct them."

The Jamaicans are scheduled to play the Australia Institute of Sports' under-21 team in another practice game, which will be their last match before they kick off their campaign against South Africa.