Netballers ready to do TT proud

Trinidad and Tobago netball coach Veronica McDonald is very confident her Calypso Girls are ready to do Trinidad and Tobago proud at the 11th Cable and Wireless World Netball Championships in Kingston, Jamaica. The 1979 joint world champions will play hosts Jamaica, the Sunshine Girls, first at the new netball facility erected for the tournament at Independence Park, west of the National Stadium on Thursday. Action in the championships opens Wednesday with eight matches. Caribbean teams Barbados, St Lucia, Grenada, Cayman Islands and St Vincent are scheduled to take the court. McDonald lamented the fact she did not have the 12-member squad “for about a year.” She spoke on Friday afternoon at the Jean Pierre Complex, Mucurapo while the team was being put through a final training regimen by team trainer Sheldon Joseph. McDonald, a “deadeye”  ex-national goal-shoot said: “I believe my team is ready to go and do what we have to do. It is a good team which is much improved from the time when I was appointed coach.” She was named coach of the Calypso Girls only six weeks ago, after the incumbent Grace Parkinson-Griffith was forced to resign as players refused to turn up for training sessions under her guidance. McDonald pointed to her defence as the weakest area when she took over. “I have worked on it, and now they are up to par,” she said. “The centre court is strong and the shoots are good, but you know with shooting it can always be better,” McDonald said.

The national coach said the Calypso Girls netballers played several matches against Soul City and El-Bar-San men teams “to toughen them up” in preparation for the tournament. And McDonald, in an attempt to get her girls ready for their tight schedule of matches, has put them through matches of three quarters of 20 minutes each against one men’s team and immediately after another similar stint against the other men’s team. “The girls are focussed. They are fit and determined to do their country proud,” McDonald said. But McDonald expressed disappointment at not being able to play practice matches against nearby Caribbean teams like Grenada, Barbados, St Vincent and St Lucia in the build-up to the championships, because of lack of finance. Added to this, the Trinidad and Tobago Netball Association could not afford her video tapes of the recent three-Test series between Jamaica and Australia nor the series against England both played in Kingston. She said she only viewed videos of the last World Championships played four years ago in New Zealand. McDonald is hopeful that after the championships she can keep the squad together in continuous training leading up to next year’s Caribbean Netball Association  Championships to be held here. Following their match against Jamaica on Thursday, the Calypso Girls netballers take on a qualifying team on Sunday, then face eight-time World Champions Australia on Monday July 14. And after playing another qualifier on July 15, they will square off against South Africa, on July 16.

Trinidad and Tobago have slipped down the world netball rankings from sharing the championship title with the Aussies and New Zealand in 1979 when the fifth World Championships were held here, to eighth at the end of the 10th edition of the championships four years ago. But McDonald is determined to put an end to that slide and is confident her team will move back up the rankings. Despite McDonald’s optimism, Trinidad and Tobago are drawn in tough Group “A” along with the Aussies, the host Sunshine Girls (Jamaica) and South Africa. Trinidad and Tobago are currently eighth behind champs Australia, New Zealand, England, Jamaica, South Africa,  Fiji and Cook Island in that order. Opening day fixtures on Thursday: Samoa vs Antigua; Sri Lanka vs Cayman Islands; Barbados vs St Lucia; Scotland vs Hong Kong; Canada vs Grenada; Northern Ireland vs Nuie; Wales vs St Vincent; USA vs Bermuda. The Calypso Girls contingent for the championships is: Jenelle Barker, Anastascia Wilson, Simone Morgan (shoots); Lystra Solomon (capt), Carlette Nurse (vice-capt), Tricia Liverpool, Stacy Sparks, Denesha Moses (centre court); Anika La Roche, Glenis Hall, Sojourner Hyles, Rhonda John (defenders). Coach Veronica McDonald, assistant-coach Althea McCollins, manageress Donna Cox, conference delegates TTNA president Martha Archer and secretary Beverly-Ann Cruickshank.