The Jamaica Sunshine Girls will kick off their campaign in the quarter-final round at the Netball World Cup (NWC) in Cape Town, South Africa, today when they take on African side Uganda.

The match is slated to start 9:00 am Jamaica time.

The Sunshine Girls, who have been in excellent form in the competition so far, had their third-straight triumph in the tournament on Sunday, recording an easy 67-49 win over hosts South Africa in Pool C.

The Jamaicans finished top of Pool C with six points, two ahead of the South Africans. They were followed by Wales on two points and Sri Lanka on zero.

Sunday’s win was sweet revenge for the Sunshine Girls, who were beaten 52-55 by the South Africans in their last meeting at the 2019 NWC in Liverpool, England.

The Ugandans, who are ranked eighth in the world, registered two victories from three matches to finish second in Pool D behind world champions New Zealand.

Assistant coach of the Sunshine Girls Shawn Murdock said they are expecting a tough game from Ugandans, but he is confident that the Jamaicans will come out victorious.

“It is going to be a very hard game because Uganda is one of the highly ranked African teams, so we are expecting more physicality from them and that is why we were keen to rotate our ladies today [Sunday] to ensure that we are giving them adequate rest.

“There is nothing to change for this, it is all about cleaning up the errors that we made against South Africa. We are expecting a high-level competition from them because they have good players that play internationally, so we are very conscious of the fact that they are a quality team,” said Murdock.

“The girls are playing with a lot of confidence and we have been confident from Jamaica, but we are not going to be over confident because we know that just as hungry as we are, the other teams are hungry too,” he stated.

The Sunshine Girls were led to victory over South Africa on Sunday courtesy of a brilliant third-quarter display from their defensive unit led by vice-captain Shamera Sterling, along with Jodi-ann Ward and Latanya Wilson.

The trio combined to limit their opponents to just three goals in the stanza, while the Jamaicans scored 20 as they romped to a 52-29 lead at the end of the period.

Earlier, the Sunshine Girls started the match slowly to lead 16-12 at the end of the first quarter and 32-26 at half-time.

Captain Jhaniele Fowler, who was taken out of the game with eight minutes remaining in the final period and replaced by Romelda Aiken-George, top-scored for the Jamaicans with 39 goals from 40 attempts.

She received support from Shanice Beckford, who shot 19 from 22. Aiken-George was six from six and Rebekah Robinson scored three from four.

Lenize Potgieter top-scored for the South Africans with a perfect 17 goals from 17 attempts.

Murdock was particularly pleased with the victory over South Africa.

“The girls are feeling good because, of course, this is one of the wins that we were looking forward to. The girls still have scars from 2019 when they lost to South Africa and that kind of derailed their plans for 2019, and so they are feeling very good about this victory,” the assistant coach said.

He added, “It is one game at a time because we know what our end goal is and we are focusing on that end goal.”