PRESIDENT of Netball Jamaica (NJ), Tricia Robinson says she is expecting the Sunshine Girls to represent the country well at the 2022 Fast5 tournament to be held at Christchurch Arena, Christchurch, New Zealand, from November 5 to 6.

The 10-member team, along with coaches Annett Daley and Dalton Hinds, is to depart the island on Saturday.

Connie Francis, the head coach for the Sunshine Girls, sits out this tournament, which gives other coaches the chance to lead the team.

“We have to be able to spread the coaching because we have so much other good coaches and they just really need an opportunity. So, looking at different coaches for Fast5 is really good and hopefully with the Under-15 we can continue to develop our coaches and give them an opportunity to coach,” Francis explained.

The Fast5 tournament is played among the world’s top-ranked six teams, featuring dynamic rules changes including five players a side, shorter quarters, power plays, and super shots. Each side only has five players on the court, and each quarter lasts only six minutes. Breaks in-between quarters are two minutes each, and injury timeouts are 30 seconds only — standard rules allow for one initial 2-minute injury timeout. Each team can separately nominate one “power play” quarter in which each goal scored by that team counts for double points. The two teams cannot nominate the same quarter to be their power play.

“We are just expecting them to do well. I am expecting the girls to give it their best and, hopefully, their best will be good enough,” Robinson told the Jamaica Observer.

Robinson said while it is a young team they are fielding for competition, the team will be boosted by the return of international star Romelda Aiken-George.

“Yes, it is a young team and the Fast5 squad is made up mostly of the same players from the Americas Netball World Cup Qualifiers. Romelda Aiken-George will be the most-capped player on the team and so we are expecting the girls to do as well as they did in the Americas Netball World Cup Qualifiers.

“Gezelle [Allison] is a senior player and so whenever she goes on court we expect her to do her best. All of our players stand out and we expect all of our players to their best as well,” Robinson said.

SQUAD – Romelda Aiken-George, Gezelle Allison, Abigail Sutherland, Mischa Creary, Roxonna McLean, Amanda Pinkney, Crystal Plummer, Kimone Shaw, Theresa Beckford, and Tafiya Hunter