DESPITE thrashing minnows Sri Lanka 105-25 in their opening match of the Netball World Cup (NWC) on Friday, assistant coach of the Jamaica Sunshine Girls team Shawn Murdock said they have a lot of things to tighten up on ahead of today’s potential top-of-the-table clash against hosts South Africa.

The Sunshine Girls, who are ranked fourth in the world, are scheduled to face an improving Wales team in their second match of the championships today, starting at 4:00 am Jamaica time.

Murdock told the Jamaica Observer that despite the team’s massive victory over the Sri Lankans on Friday there were a number of mistakes that the team made which they must correct before the clash with the host nation on Sunday.

“We are happy for the win but there are plenty of things to work on, because we had some targets that we set but we never ticked all the boxes so there is room for improvement,” said Murdock.

“There were some errors that we made that we certainly can’t take into the South Africa game. It was good just to get a feel of it and identify that we need to work on the mistakes that we made as we prepare for the bigger ones to come,” he said.

Murdock pointed out that he was not surprised by the Sunshine Girls’ massive score of 105 goals because they have one of the best offensive units at the championships.

“We are okay with the score. And it is expected because, offensively, we have very good shooters and they were very good today [Friday],” he said.

“We have arguably the three best shooters in the world in Jhaniele [Fowler], Romelda [Aiken George] and Shimona [Nelson], and we also have some of the best goal attacks in the game as well, and so it is just about moving from strength to strength in each game,” Murdock added.

Captain Fowler, who only played in the second half of the match, led the way for the Sunshine Girls with 42 goals from 43 attempts. She stated that she was very pleased with the team’s performance against Sri Lanka.

“The game plan is just to make sure that we are gelling as a team and stick to the game plan and, if necessary, we will go out there and change it up — but it is just to play one game at time,” Fowler said.

“We wanted to go out there and practise some of our strategies and make sure that we are cementing our plays in this match,” she said.

Aiken George was the team’s second-highest goalscorer on the day with 33 goals ,while Rebekah Robinson and Shanice Beckford also chipped in with 15 goals each.

The Jamaicans ran circles around their opponents in the second period of the match as they outplayed the Sri Lankans in all departments, increasing their lead to 52-11 by half-time and 75-18 at the end of the third quarter.