Pedal to the floor
Sunshine Girls boss wants charges to stay focused against dangerous SPAR Proteas
Published:Wednesday | January 22, 2025 | 12:09 AMGregory Bryce/Gleaner Writer
HAVING TAKEN a 1-0 lead in the Margaret Beckford Sunshine Series against South Africa, Sunshine Girls’ head coach Sasher-Gaye Henry said the team is prepared to take on resurgent opponents in what could be a potential series decider today.
The Sunshine Girls opened the three-match series in positively playing out a 55-47 win against the SPAR Proteas on Saturday at the National Indoor Sports Centre.
Despite already having a win in hand, Henry said the Girls will not be resting on their laurels as they prepare for the second encounter in what, she predicts, will be against a sterner South African unit.
Henry explained it is important for the team to correct the errors they had made in the opener if they want to seal the Margaret Beckford trophy later today.
“We have to look at game one and look at what we did not do so well. We have to come back strong although we got the win,” the head coach explained.
“We know it will be a tougher one because it could be a decider and South Africa does want to disrupt the flow. We just have to go back to the drawing board and reconstruct ourselves and look back at our strategies and our plans.”
Henry stated one such area of improvement will be the connection between Shimona Jok (nee Nelson) and the rest of the team.
The Sunshine Girls boss explained while Jok has proven herself an experienced player throughout her career, her extended absence from the national programme has affected the chemistry with her teammates on the court.
Despite the concerns, however, Jok has shown her quality in the shooting circle, netting 38 of her 39 attempts in the previous game.
“I think we lapsed a lot. I think we had some short balls and it is a new shooter that we are back with now, Shimona Nelson. She is a quite experienced player playing in the league in Australia,” Henry stated.
“She has the experience but I think because she’s new to us and hasn’t been around for some time now, I think we have a little more work to do in that area,” she added.
In good shape
Henry also praised the performance of the team as she believes they have shown the national programme is in good shape despite their 15-month hiatus after the Netball World Cup in 2023.
Her comments were in reference not just to Jamaica’s win on Saturday, but also their 2-1 series win over England in the inaugural Vitality Netball Horizon Series two months ago.
“As a team collectively, I think we did a great job. There are areas that we really need to still work on. There are some things that we had seen in the England games that we wanted to improve on and we did improve on those,” she beamed.
“It’s a good place that we’re at in terms of building for a four-year cycle in our second consecutive Test.”
The second game against South Africa is set to start at 7:00 p.m. at the National Indoors Sports Centre.
A win for the Sunshine Girls will mean they will claim the series, while a win for South Africa will push the series into a game-three decider on Saturday.
Before the two go toe-to-toe, the under-21 teams from the countries will take to the court at 3:30 p.m.
The Jamaicans were beaten handsomely 31-61 in the under-21 opener.