JAMAICA Netball Association (JNA) boss Marva Bernard has confirmed that they will be soliciting the services of renowned netball instructor Jill McIntosh to work alongside coach Connie Francis in preparing the Sunshine Girls for next year’s World Championship in Singapore.

McIntosh, a former Australian coach who has won multiple world titles both as a player and a coach, was recently in the island on a six-week stint with the JNA where she worked with several local coaches in the Jamaica Award Netball Coaching Certification programme.

Bernard believes bringing her back to work directly with the team this time will give the Girls the extra push which is needed to topple their top-ranked opponents.

“Jill is coming to assist the team next year full-time,” Bernard told the Observer in a recent interview.

McIntosh’s impending addition to the Sunshine Girls’ coaching staff comes directly on the heels of their disappointing fourth-place finish at the recently concluded Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India.

At the 19th edition of the Games, Jamaica — ranked fourth in the world — dominated their lesser-ranked opponents and looked on course to do something special, but went on to stumble against the ‘big three’ — Australia, New Zealand and England — in decisive fixtures.

They were beaten by more than 13 points in all games, losing 46-60 to the Aussies in their top-of-the-table pool ‘A’ clash; 43-59 to New Zealand in the semi-finals, and 47-70 to England in the third-place bronze medal match-up.

To their credit, however, the Girls were either leading or locked in a stalemate early on in those games, but lost steam and in the end looked under par.

Francis, in her postmortem, admitted that help is needed to push Jamaica’s netball to the next level. “We do need the help, foreign coach or no foreign coach,” she said.

“… We have to recognise that what we’re doing right now needs to stop or else our netball will sink,” Francis added.

She believes that the Girls’ failure in India was due mainly to their poor physical condition which resulted from limited time on the court.

“There is a problem with our fitness, not only in India,” she told the Observer. “It’s something that we realised from in July (and) we tried to fix it, but I think what is happening to us is that three oppositions who are ahead of us are doing something different.”

“They are… spending more time with netball. We only spend like 10 hours per week with netball, while they are spending much more time than that.

“It’s also a really big challenge for our girls to give more right now, because some of them have families, school and work. So, that’s one of the things that we are looking to improve on in order to be there with the top-three teams or even surpass them,” Francis said.

The defeat to New Zealand was perhaps the most devastating of the lot, if not for the Girls, certainly for Francis.

It meant Jamaica were being knocked out at the semi-final stage of a major championship for the sixth straight time by the Silver Ferns — dating back to the 1999 World Netball Championship in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Francis was captain of that team, but retired right after the championship (came back in 2005) for reasons she said were unrelated to the competition.

She has been chasing netball glory for herself and country since the 1980s, but the top prize still proves elusive, even in her days as a coach.

But, an optimist she was in her prime as a player and an optimist she remains today. “I know that we will bounce back because we have a good crop of players,” said Francis in trying to look past her team’s latest disappointment.

“We felt really down as a group after the defeat to England because none of us like losing to them, but the way how we rallied around each other knowing that we played below our standard is what I admire most about the team.

“They (the players) recognise where went wrong and are willing to come back home and do the work, because it’s going to be even more difficult now,” Francis noted.

The Sunshine Girls next big assignment will be the FasNet World Netball Series in Liverpool, England from November 19-21.

They are the reigning silver medalists, having lost out to the Ferns in the final of the inaugural staging in Manchester, England last year.

But, while the entire netball fraternity will be hoping for at least another appearance in the final, the primary aim is to hit the jackpot when the World Championship comes calling next year.

Bernard has assured that the administration will be going all-out to make it happen, which includes bringing in McIntosh to bolster the coaching staff.

The details of the agreement between the JNA and highly-rated Australian coach are yet to be finalised, Bernard said, but noted that McIntosh should be here for a five-month stint which will be extended to the World Championship.

“She will be coming in February and will be working through to the middle of June and all of these coaches (Minette Reynolds, C Lloyd Walker, Oberon Pitterson and Annett Daley) are going to be working with her, Connie and the team,” she said.

Meantime, Francis is looking forward to the partnership with McIntosh. “She has been quite an inspiration to our programme for quite a while,” Francis said. “She’s an expert at this and we need to find a way to beat Australia and New Zealand, so her coming in to help our programme will be a huge (boost).”