THE Sunshine Girls will try to rebound against world champions Australia when they meet in the second game of their Supreme Ventures Sunshine Series at the National Indoor Sports Centre (NISC) starting at 7:30.

Australia took a 1-0 lead in the three-match series with a 63-51 victory in game one on Wednesday, and their coach Norma Plummer said she expected an equal amount of pressure for tonight as well as Sunday’s encounter.

“I thought there was a lot of pressure,” she told the Observer.

“Jamaica put us under pressure for the whole night so we know that’s not going to change for the second game. We’re really going to have to keep re-inventing ourselves and coming up with some good strategies.”

Jamaica’s head coach Connie Francis admitted that the Sunshine Girls had a far way to go in their preparation for the World Netball Championships (WNC) in Singapore in July and that the series against Australia was a good marker ahead of this important event.

“I thought that we showed a lot of promises. This team has such a far way to go and it so good that we are still in our early stages of development,” she said.

The Australia Diamonds led from start to finish in Wednesday evening’s match. They were up 15-12 at the end of the first quarter, 32-25 by the end of the second quarter, and 36-48 at the end of the third quarter before going on to the 12 point victory.

The Jamaica Netball Association (JNA) in the meantime held a special luncheon in honour of the visitors at the Acropolis Gaming Lounge in Barbican on Thursday.

Teams:

Jamaica (from) — Simone Forbes, Romelda Aiken, Nadine Bryan, Paula Thompson, Kimone Tulloch, Sasher Gay Henry, Althea Byfield, Nicole Aiken Pinnock, Kasey Evering, Malysha Kelly, Jhaniele Fowler, Marsha Murphy

Australia (from) — Natalie Medhurst, Sharelle McMahon, Catherine Cox, Madison Browne, Natalie Von Bertouch, Kim Green, Rebecca Bulley, Susan Fuhrmann, Kate Beveridge, Lauren Nourse, Laura Getz, Amy Steel.