Coaches slam tough netball schedule

As the fierce competition continues in the Americas Netball World Cup Qualifiers at the National Indoor Sports Centre in Kingston, some teams have said the schedule makes it difficult for them to recover for games.

Donna Joseph, assistant coach of St Lucia, said they have been put in this dilemma since the first day of the competition as they played the last game of the morning session against Grenada and then they were back on court for the first game of the evening session against Trinidad and Tobago.

“From the start of the competition, the fixtures have been made it tough for us. All the teams we have played are ranked above us and we had two hard games on the first day,” Joseph said.

“We had four hours in between the games. How can a team recover in four hours with that level of competition?” Joseph asked with frustration.

She said this is taking a toll on the players.

“The body is still tired, there’s no recovery time and, on the other hand, you have us playing tough games, whereas you have other teams playing one tough game and a little easier game,” Joseph said.

St Vincent and the Grenadines assistant coach Kalifa McCollin said she also thinks the schedule makes it hard for her team to recover.

“I think, in previous years, (in terms of) the standards of the competition, you would have found that some teams were playing at a high level and some were a bit below par. But this year you have all of the teams playing at a high level, all the games are quite intense. So I think it’s a little bit difficult for people to recover within the time span that we have,”

However, she said her team tried to prepare for close intense matches as best as possible and they will need to use this preparation as they play the last match today and the first game tomorrow.

“In preparation for coming here, we did have a camp where our training sessions would have been back to back as best as we could have. Some of the girls do have work and some have school. So it was a bit tedious getting everybody at a time,” McCollin said.

The qualifiers end on Sunday as two teams will look to join Jamaica in Cape Town, South Africa for the Netball World Cup in 2023.