Editorial comment – Stepping up in the court

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Editorial comment – Stepping up in the court

THE fact that Suva and Nasinu dominated this year’s Central Primary Schools Netball Tournament which was held over two days at the National Netball Centre in Suva will attract attention.

It may be a foregone conclusion for some people though. Suva made a clean sweep in three grades — in the under-9, 12 and 14 grades. Nasinu took out top honours in the under-10, 11 and 13 grades.

The Suva under-14 team defeated defending champions Kadavu in the final, beating them 21-10 with a half-time score of 11-6. Suva coach Miriama Lawalu said the Suva team performed as expected from day one of the competition.

Lawalu said most of the players in the team had club level experience.

That would have set them on a very high pedestal in the tournament.

Now that the competition has ended, attention will no doubt shift to what happens next for our young netters.

At the Netball World Cup in Liverpool, England last month, our Fiji Pearls defeated Singapore 71-56.

National coach Vicki Wilson was excited because the win allowed Fiji to be equal on points with Sri Lanka and Samoa in Group E.

Aside from that victory though, we weren’t impressive at all in our early games at the World Cup.

We succumbed 29-85 to Jamaica in our opening game, losing all quarters, 8-19, 6-21, 4-27 and 11-18.

We lost our second game to South Africa 35-90, again losing all quarters 9-24, 10-23, 6-20 and 10-23.

We then lost to Trinidad and Tobago 56-67, but this time, we won the final quarter 16-10, after having lost the first three 10-23, 15-17 and 15-17.

We succumbed to Samoa in the playoffs 54-55, again winning one quarter 12-7.

We lost three 16-18, 14-15 and 12-15. The match was obviously tight. We then found our rhythm against Singapore, winning that match 71-56. We won the first quarter 22-12, lost the second 13-14, and won the last two 17-14 and 19-16.

Questions will no doubt be raised about our preparations, the quality and standard of our squad, commitment and enthusiasm. While we may be inclined to downplay the result, the bottom line remains it was our national team.

It represented every Fijian and there was a certain level of expectation heaped on members of the team to perform to the highest of international standards.

There can be no doubts about the need now to find out what went wrong and what needs to be done to improve.

No effort must be spared to do that.

If this means a revamp in our domestic competition, priorities at both local and international level, then let’s make things happen.

This is why competitions like the Central Primary Schools Netball Tournament are important in the developmental phase of our netball.

We must get over the international humiliation at the highest level of the game, regroup, and plan better, looking to the future.

We have an abundance of talented youngsters who are coming through the ranks.

There must be a pathway that is clear for them to eventually move on to the Pearls team.

That progression and development phase starts right now as we prepare to host the 2021 World Youth Cup in Suva.

Let’s get behind the development of netball.

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