Sunshine Girls slip in world rankings

Jamaica Sunshine Girls have slipped from second to fourth in the latest International Netball Federation world rankings, which was released recently.

Australia lead the standings ahead of reigning World champions New Zealand, followed England.

The Jamaicans were elevated from third to second in the rankings a few days before the start of this year's Netball World Cup (NWC), which was held in Liverpool, England, in July.

However, the Jamaicans had a poor showing at the tournament as they finished fifth.

In fact, the Jamaicans also failed to make the semi-finals of the tournament for the first time since 1995.

Veteran local coach Patrick Brissett said the Sunshine Girls dropped in the rankings is a result of their dismal performance at the NWC.

"I am not surprised of this because we came fifth at the World championships," said Brissett. "We were two and we lost to England and South Africa at the World Championships and so the ranking look reasonable to me."

The Sunshine Girls are scheduled to participate in Quad Series, which involves New Zealand, South Africa and hosts England in January. The matches will be played from January 19-26 in London. The Sunshine Girls must perform well against these teams, which are all rated below them in order to maintain their current world ranking.

"We have the Quad Series to work with and so we are going to have to work hard and this must give us ranking (points) if we do well it,"Brissett said.