WITH the Sunshine Girls once again failing to overhaul their top three rivals, the strategy and overall competence of the coaching staff led by Australian Jill McIntosh has been called into question.

But head coach Minneth Reynolds has moved to head off claims that the squad was short on depth and a number of players were overused at the recently concluded tournament in Sydney, Australia.

She pointed out that the players formed one of the best teams to represent Jamaica at a major championship.

“We had some very good games, and some not so good games, at crucial times which cost us not to medal in this tournament. But despite the loss we had some very good patches of play throughout and it is just the control and consistency that let us down at times,” Reynolds said while speaking to reporters at the Norman Manley International Airport recently.

“We took 12 girls with us and at any given time any of those 12 girls can represent us and I think those 12 girls have given good accounts of themselves despite the negatives that you have heard. We used all 12 girls in most of our games, but we had some very tough games where we had to use the stronger team, so it is not that some girls were over played and some were underplayed,” she explained.

The Sunshine Girls started their campaign with a comprehensive 90-44 win over 13th-ranked Samoa, but went down 50-54 to England in their subsequent game.

They returned a day later and asserted their dominance over 11th-ranked Scotland with a 71-24 win, but again failed to maintain a consistent run as they suffered a 48-55 loss to New Zealand in the second round.

However, the Girls made all in a 59-47 win over Uganda, before clinching a gutsy 63-62 win over number five-ranked Malawi to advance to the semi-finals.

And like it was in the last World Cup four years ago, Jamaica failed to surpass the semi-final stage after going down 56-67 to reigning and eventual champions, Australia.

Jamaica finished fourth when they were beaten 66-44 by rivals England in the bronze medal game at the Allphones Arena.

During that encounter, a number of changes were made in the final quarter which commentators described as questionable tactics. However, Reynolds explained that the coaching staff made the rotations in a desperate attempt to cop a medal.

“We played the way how we trained… we have always been training with rotation because if something is not working there is always the opportunity to fix it. We wanted a medal so that constant changing that you saw on court was something that we had to do as a coaching staff.

“It was all or nothing because that was the last medal up for grabs and anything that could possibly give us the medal we tried it,” she declared.

Having to contest a number of games in a short period of time, the Jamaicans at times displayed signs of fatigue, and had to contend with a few injuries and sore muscles prior to their semi-final contest.

Goal-attack Shanice Beckford, who was voted Jamaica’s top performer, played with a lingering hamstring injury and Nicole Dixon, who marshalled centre court, had a calf injury, while goal-defence Stacian Facey injured her knee.

“They were a strong group of girls that went to Australia; I am not going to be dwelling on the negative because these girls worked long and hard. It is rather disappointing that we didn’t get a medal, but at the end of the day it is not to dwell so much on what we did not get, it is what we learnt from it and what we can build on,” Reynolds noted.

“These girls remained confident right throughout to the end, and as I said, there is a lot of positives to take from this campaign. We are down, but certainly not out; we can only live and learn from this experience.

“Yes, we wanted a medal, the entire Jamaica wanted a medal (but) it didn’t happen this time. There is always another opportunity and we will be going back to see what we could have done differently to ensure that next time around we will be in a better position to medal,” she assured.