FOLLOWING their 3-0 loss to Australia in their recent series, Jamaica’s Under-21 netball coach Annett Daley says the team needs work on all areas of their game ahead of the World Youth Netball Championships (WYNC) in Glasgow, Scotland next year.

The young Sunshine Girls lost the final game at the National Arena, 53-35, on Sunday. That was their highest score of the three-match series following respective 60-31 and 51-25 defeats on Friday and Saturday.

“It’s a total working on because we’re seeing deficiencies in all areas… but what is good is that we see progression throughout the game,” Daley told the Jamaica Observer.

“There are times that the areas fell down. Sometimes the shooting fell down; sometimes centre court fell down; sometime defence; so we need to be consistent with the good plays,” she said.

That progression was evident over the course of the three games. In Friday’s opener, the visitors swept in front early and were up to three points before the young Jamaicans were able to put a basket on the scoreboard. After the sixth point, the home team were able to match their opponents point for point.

The home team missed a shot at the lead with a minute-and-a-half on the board after collecting a rebound, but instead of moving the ball into the net, it was thrown out.

The Australians were able to double the young Sunshine Girls’ quarterly scores throughout each game. By Sunday’s final encounter, however, the Jamaicans were putting up more of a challenge to the visitors.

The young Jamaicans’ mid- and long-range shooting seem to be a sticking point, however, as it failed them on several occasions, which the Australians capitalised on as they continued to build up a healthy lead in each game.

Daley said the solution was for her players to move beyond the errors they made and look ahead.

“When there are errors (it’s) how to come back from these errors. We make one error and we tend to be thinking about it and, therefore, we tend to make a second error that is similar, so it’s about how do we recover… because there were good plays and we just want to build on those good spots of plays,” Daley said, while not singling out players from last weekend’s showing.

“I give credit to all the girls at some point in time. They all showed that they did have the calibre to represent, so I’m giving credit to the good plays,” she emphasised.

Meanwhile, Australian coach Carol Byer said her team used the matches as a way of working on their goals for the World Championships

“We want to make sure that we provide our players with opportunities… We’re working on different things so that we get there with more than just a plan A — that we’ve got other options when the opposition team come out and play us.”

Despite the series defeat, Jamaica’s Shantel Slater was the overall top scorer. Slater netted 69 goals from 86 attempts in the three games, while Australia’s Cody Lange landed 48 from 62.

Meanwhile, Australia’s Under-21 wing attack/centre Kim Ravallion received a call up to her country’s senior team during their recent tour of Jamaica.

Ravallion, who plays for New South Wales in the ANZ Championships, also played for the Australian team in the recent Fast5 World Netball Series in Auckland, New Zealand.

The Australia Diamonds are the top netball country in the world.