'Sunshine Girls on par with main rivals'

Veteran netball coaches, Winston Nevers and Sylvester Campbell, are happy that the Sunshine Girls won the bronze medal at this year's Commonwealth Games on Australia's Gold Coast but both feel that Jamaica could have pocketed gold with a lot more focus and discipline. The Sunshine Girls secured the bronze medal after defeating New Zealand 60-55. However, they were beaten 56-55 by eventual champions England in the semifinals.

"I think that we are doing well at this time because we are playing much better than we did last year," said Nevers who is the coach of Jamalco. However, we need to concentrate for 90 minutes instead of 60 minutes because we when get to 60 minutes, we should be ready and raring to go and so we definitely have to work on this for the future," he said.

According to Nevers, the Sunshine Girls are battling for the number two ranking in the world.

"I think we are on par with New Zealand and England, but I think that Australia are above us right now," said Nevers.

He added that Netball Jamaica should now look to improve the team ahead of next year's World Championships in Liverpool, England.

Areas for improvement

"My three areas for improvement are concentration (our number one problem), speed (number two) because these top teams have more speed than us and we also need more height in the team," Nevers said.

"We need tall players because Australia and New Zealand have players with height right across the board and so we have to work on that," he added.

Campbell said he was very impressed with the Sunshine Girls' performance at the championships as they now appear to be on par with all the top teams in the world.

"We did very well because the team that won the championships beat us by one and they went on to win the championship by one point and therefore it tells you that everybody is on the same level," Campbell, the coach of Tivoli Gardens, said.