They have adopted the catchphrase “pressure is a privilege” from the tennis star to deal with the weight of expectation of a Netball World Cup on home soil.
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“As a team we don’t really ever talk about it”, she said. But with the ANZ Championship preparing players for only one match a week, the sudden increase in workload in a tournament environment led some players to breakdown.
Shonica Wharton of Barbados catches the ball during the 2015 Netball World Cup match between New Zealand and Barbados at Allphones Arena on August 7, 2015 in Sydney, Australia.
The reigning Asian champions, ranked 17th in the world, are grouped in Pool C with Malawi (5th), South Africa (6th), and fierce continental rivals Sri Lanka (24th), and their mission Down Under is to put up a better show than the last World Cup here in 2011.
“Australia can’t have her”, she said.
LAURA Geitz and the Australian Diamonds beat Trinidad and Tobago 73-32 in a late Friday night game at the Netball World Cup in Sydney.
“We’re going to get people on, we’re going to keep people as fresh as we can over the next couple of days and we’ll see where we are at against Australia”.
“It’s fantastic for us to come up against New Zealand“.
Kopua said the team needed to celebrate their win and acknowledge what they have achieved, but also be realistic that they are still only at pool play stage.
By the end of the third quarter, after making five changes at half time, the tournament favourites held a 51-26 lead but the score betrayed an intense contest against a willing adversary.
In fact this will be the first time in 16 years that the Silver Ferns will enter the sport’s pinnacle event without her, after she retired from worldwide competition in 2014.
“As Aussies we’re extremely tough on ourselves, and everyone was extremely disappointed in our own performance”, Green said.
This match will be only the fourth Netball World Cup meet between the two countries, with Barbardos yet to defeat Australia in their three previous Netball World Cup meetings.
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Wales went down 54-42 to the young Aussies in their first outing before picking up two morale boosting wins to take with them on their journey to Sydney this week. “I know it’s going to be a huge ask, but we do have the potential to create some upsets if we play to our best”.
