Sunshine Girls facing many challenges ahead of England tour

National senior team netball coach Connie Francis says despite a number of challenges facing the team, the Sunshine Girls have been working hard ahead of their upcoming three-Test Series against hosts England in December.

The highly anticipated series was scheduled to take place in Jamaica, but it has been shifted to the United Kingdom.

Francis said the lack of on-court practice due to the COVID-19 pandemic has severely hampered her training methods. A lot of the work has to be done online.

"We can't work on our tactics, our court play, our fitness, our skills, and so those are the major challenges," said Francis. "But everybody is turning up for training (on Zoom) and they have been working out really hard, but not being able to do the court work is a major issue for us," she said.

"Hopefully, soon that (court work) may happen, and so we are just keeping our fingers crossed.

The Sunshine Girls are currently ranked fourth in the world, one place below England. The Jamaicans recorded a 3-0 home series victory over England in 2018 in their last Test series. The veteran coach underscored that the series forms a very critical part of their development for the 2023 Netball World Cup, which will be held in South Africa.

"It is a very important series not only to get ranking points, but the players will have an opportunity to impress the selectors when it comes to the final cut for the World Cup," said Francis.

"We want to ensure that every time we go out we improve, because that is a plus for us. I am looking at individual players, how well they do playing in their positions and collectively as a team," she added.

Along with the local-based players, Jamaica currently has six players plying their trade in the Australian Suncorp Super Netball League. They are captain Jhaneile Fowler, Romelda Aiken, Shamera Sterling, Shimona Nelson, Jodi-Ann Ward and Kadie-Ann Dehaney.