A confident national senior netball team is scheduled to depart the island this afternoon for the 2023 Fast5 Netball World Series, which will be held at the Wolfbrook Arena in Christchurch, New Zealand, November 11-12.

The Jamaicans finished sixth (having not won a game) at the last competition, which was also held in New Zealand, but they have won three silver medals at the championships thus far — in 2009, 2017, and 2018.

However, Shawn Murdock, a co-coach of the side along with Nicola Aiken-Pinnock, said the Sunshine Girls are upbeat and confident of doing well at the championships.

“I am feeling very good about this trip, but I know that it is going to be a challenging trip for us, but I know that the girls will be up for the task down there in New Zealand,” said Murdock.

“We are going into this tournament knowing that is a form development for our ladies, but we know that we have some quality players on our team that are ready to deliver for us. This is the Fast5 and it is an exciting shorter version of the game and so the results can go either way,” he added.

Rhea Dixon, who had represented England at the Under-21 level, will be making her Sunshine Girls debut after expressing an interest in representing Jamaica for some time. She is qualified to represent Jamaica through her grandmother.

Murdock, who was the assistant of the Sunshine Girls that won the bronze medal at this year’s Netball World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa, shared that he is quite pleased with the team’s preparations going into the championships.

“It was a short preparation but it was good because we had all the players in training except Romelda [Aiken-George] and we will meet up with her in New Zealand,” he said.

Meanwhile, Simone Forbes, first vice-president of Netball Jamaica, says she is expecting the team to do well at the tournament.

“Jamaica has historically always done well at the Fast5 tournament but last year was a little disappointing for us,” Forbes said. “But, we are hoping that this year we will improve from that placing from 2022. The hope is to finish in a medal position, which we missed out on last year,” she said.

The world’s six most experienced Fast5 women’s teams — New Zealand, Australia, England, Jamaica, South Africa, and Malawi — are to compete at the event.

The Sunshine Girls squad: Romelda Aiken-George (captain), Adean Thomas (vice-captain), Gezelle Allison, Theresa Beckford, Rhea Dixon, Abbeygail Linton, Amanda Pinkney, Crystal Plummer, Kimone Shaw, and Abigale Sutherland.

— Robert Bailey