TECHNICAL Director of the Sunshine Girls, Australian Jill McIntosh, who will be bidding Jamaica farewell to take up her role as residential coach for the Centre of Excellence programmme in her home country after the World Cup, says during her tenure in Jamaica she has identified a lot of talent which has led her to believe strongly in the future of the sport.

“The development squad has a group of young women that have talent and they have come from all across the island. These ladies will continue to train because there is a youth World Cup in 2017, which is very important in the developmental cycle for netball in Jamaica. So the emphasis will be very much on the Youth Cup which is an Under-21 event and many of our players coming through,” McIntosh said.

“Sure I won’t be here…. my work is done; but Minneth (Reynolds) ably assisted by Annette Daley will continue to run the programme. Underneath them there are other coaches that have been assigned to the other teams and squads, and it will all continue. So when I look at the talent… yes, you will lose some but you will also gain some and I think the talent is there and it is looking very good for the future of netball in Jamaica,” she added.

Meanwhile, Karen Anderson, General Manager of Netball Jamaica, outlined that they have already visited a number of parishes from which players will be selected to join the national programmme.

“We have gone to St Thomas, Clarendon, St Elizabeth and Portland. So we are rolling out our programmes to replicate what we have been doing in Kingston throughout the parishes, and each of those areas will select Under-14 and under-16 players that they can now feed into the national programmme so it will continue to develop and you will see them as they evolve,” she assured.

Anderson added that an Under-16 rally to be held in September will be used to select the national team for next year as the focus will turn to the World Youth Cup in 2017.

And with umpires and coaches being essential to the game, Netball Jamaica has already implemented a junior umpire programme which comprises high school students at the age of 18, who have qualified and have passed the basic entry requirements. One member of the Sunshine Girls team is also a part of that programme.

The sporting body in tandem with the University of Technology (UTech) also held a coaching course.