AFTER returning last year for her second stint as technical director of Netball Jamaica, Australian Jill McIntosh was successful in taking the senior netball team to a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland.

And the former Australian netball coach has one more major goal in sight before bidding Jamaica farewell to take up her role as residential coach for the Centre of Excellence programme in her home country.

McIntosh, one of two coaches to lead Australia to a Commonwealth Games gold medal, is banking on the Sunshine Girls for another podium finish when they go down under at the Netball World Cup in Sydney, Australia, next month.

But she is well aware of the task at hand for the number-four ranked Jamaicans to topple the big three of Australia, New Zealand and England.

“We certainly want to be on the podium….the higher the better,” she told the Jamaica Observer in a recent interview.

She continued: “It won’t be easy because the top four teams are very close; it can go either way against any of the teams, but it just comes down to on the day and the strength of mind.

“All teams are very even in the skills, but it’s the strength of mind and who deals with the pressures of the situations better. So hopefully this team is well-prepared enough to be able to deal with it, and to beat one of or all of those top teams.”

The experienced campaigner, who was recruited by Netball Jamaica in 2010 as a consultant for the national senior team, has since assisted with improving the fortunes of the team, and also played a major role in reinforcing the coaching programmes locally.

During her tenure in Jamaica, McIntosh acknowledged that she has seen significant improvement in the attitude and ability of the players.

The Sunshine Girls have taken shape ahead of the world tournament with a hard-fought 2-1 series win over England in January. They recently followed that performance with convincing victories over Barbados and the Berger Elite All-Star team in consecutive series.

“They are on track. I think the players are definitely improving; they are more aware of the standard that they have to achieve. This World Cup is so very important and the more they play one of the top three teams, the more they understand why they have to train so hard,” explained McIntosh.

“This group of players has been excellent; they have put in really hard work and we are just finishing off now in the last couple of weeks. So I think they understand more what they have to do and the level of play that they have to get to, and when they go to these major events I think they also understand now that it must be a four-quarter consistent performance,” she added.