2 days ago
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DESPITE STUMBLING to a 3-0 defeat in their recent series against South Africa’s under-21s, the SPAR Baby Proteas, Annette Daley, head coach of Jamaica’s young Sunshine Girls, called it a good test for the youngsters to compete in high-level competition in front of a jam-packed National Indoor Sports Centre.
“It was definitely about learning and I was grateful for the series,” said Daley.
“These girls have never gotten the experience before, and for me, I saw incremental improvement. I was a little disappointed because we got a number of their centre passes but we didn’t convert them,” said the coach.
After getting hammered 61-31 in the opening fixture, the Jamaicans regrouped but still fell short, going on to lose the second fixture 49-32 and the third, 47-33.
According to Daley, while the young Sunshine Girls obviously struggled on the offensive end of the spectrum, she applauded the continuously improving performances of the defensive unit.
“That’s definitely a consolation for the team. It was indeed a target to reduce the score, but also improve ours. I was disappointed in how we moved our score, as I wanted the percentage change to be greater. The stats are showing that we’re getting the balls into our hands but how do we now convert those? That’s the challenge, but I know that we’re a resilient set of people and we’ll be working hard in order to get that done,” said Daley.
South Africa’s Giada Prinsloo was a thorn in the flesh of the Jamaican defenders all series, registering shooting performances of 44 goals from 48 attempts in game one, 31 from 33 in game two, and 22 from 25 in Saturday’s finale.
Both teams were using the series as preparation work for the upcoming Youth Netball World Cup in Gibraltar from September 19-28.
Jamaica earned a silver medal in 2000 and had a bronze in 2013 and the team needs to improve if they are to match any of those performances.
“We want to ensure now that we look at how they perform, we have the tape to do the analysis and then break down the training to get us to where we want to be come September,” explained Daley
English (US) ·