Netball coach sees silver lining in Adelaide defeat

National senior netball head coach Sasher-Gaye Henry said there were encouraging signs for the Sunshine Girls despite their heavy 72–41 defeat to hosts Australia in the opening match of their three-Test series in Adelaide yesterday.

Henry said the focus remains on growth and improvement as the Jamaicans prepare for the second Test, as she noted that the lessons learned from game one could lead to a stronger showing in the remaining two games.

“We are very hopeful going into game two because for us it is about building and so we definitely want to make a big impact on our performance in our next game based on our efforts in game one,” Henry said. “We know that there are some areas that we really want to fix and we are hoping that we will get it right for game two.” Game two will be played in Perth on Sunday before the final Test in Melbourne next Wednesday.

The Sunshine Girls trailed 16-10 at the end of the first quarter, 34–22 at half-time, and 54–30 at the end of a woeful third quarter in which they were outshot 20-8, before being outscored 18-11 in the final period as the world number one Australians surged to a comfortable victory.

The top scorers for Jamaica were Shanice Beckford with 17 goals from 18 attempts, Simone Gordon 12 from 15 and Giselle Allison 12 from 18.

Cara Coenen led the way for the hosts with 25 from 27 followed by Kiera Austin with 21 from 23 and Sophie Garbin 17 from 18.

The Sunshine Girls are once again missing several key players, including captain and star goal shooter Jhaniele Fowler-Nembhard, as well as top defender Shamera Sterling-Humphrey.

Despite the lopsided scoreline, Henry stated that the Sunshine Girls team showed improvement compared to the last series against England which Jamaica lost 2-0.

“I think that we have definitely improved in certain areas of our game against Australia compared to our last series in December against England,” she said. “However, we didn’t start out well against the Australians and we made some poor errors, not Australia intercepting but our team giving away the ball easily.”

Henry pointed out that while some performance targets were not met, there were flashes of quality play that the team can build on.

“We set some targets but we didn’t achieve some of them in terms of the scoreline but we did see some nice, sharp passages of play,” she said. “But again consistency to limit the turnovers played a big part for us.”

Henry pointed to ball control and decision-making as key areas for improvement that they need to be good at ahead of the next match.

“We definitely know that we have to work on our sharpness and our control, especially with our passes and not trying to force the ball very long, but working hard to get the ball in the circle before shooting,” Henry said.

“I must give credit to some of our younger players, like Roxonna McLean playing in the defending circle with Latanya Wilson for the first time, it was just super impressive,” Henry said. “She is one of the young under-21s who are just coming into the squad for the first time.”