Nigel Si­mon

A mix­ture of youth and ex­pe­ri­ence will com­prise a 12-mem­ber T&T se­nior women's net­ball team se­lect­ed by coach Wes­ley "Pepe" Gomes for a Three-Test se­ries against Eng­land and the Net­ball Eu­rope Rank­ing Com­pe­ti­tion and Open Cham­pi­onship.The 12-mem­ber T&T team, ranked ninth in the world, will de­part for Eng­land on Sat­ur­day via Caribbean Air­lines at 7.40 pm along with a four-mem­ber tech­ni­cal staff head­ed by Gomes.

The se­ries against world third ranked Eng­land will see T&T play match­es on May 6 at the Sports Train­ing Vil­lage in Bath; May 8 at the Cop­per Box Are­na, Lon­don and three days lat­er at Echo Are­na, Liv­er­pool.The "Ca­lyp­so net­ballers" then to Belfast, to com­pete at the Net­ball Eu­rope Open Cham­pi­onship from May 14–17 in North­ern Ire­land against the host, Scot­land, Wales, Eng­land and fel­low guest team South Africa.

The quar­tet of Gibral­tar (#34), Ire­land (#28), Mal­ta (#36) and Switzer­land (#30) will com­pete in a rank­ings round-robin tour­na­ment.Both tour­na­ments for the T&T women are be­ing used as part of their prepa­ra­tions for the 14th Net­ball World Cup in Syd­ney Aus­tralia, from Au­gust 7-16.

The T&T team com­pris­es reg­u­lar faces in the youth­ful but tal­ent­ed Saman­tha Wal­lace, Kem­ba Dun­can, jel­lene Richard­son and Kali­fa Mc­Collin, along­side the ex­pe­ri­ence of Joelisa Coop­er, Can­dice Guer­rero, Rhon­da John-Davis, Onel­la Jack, Afeisha Noel, Daystar Swift, and Kielle Con­nel­ly, the "Most Valu­able Play­er" of the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Courts All Sec­tors Net­ball League. Richard­son is a late ad­di­tion to the team. She has re­placed vet­er­an Tri­cia Liv­er­pool, who sus­tained a Grade 2 menis­cus tear in­jury.

Head coach Gomes said the 12 play­ers se­lect­ed is from a squad of 18 that has been in train­ing prepar­ing for the World Cham­pi­onships lat­er this year.The "Ca­lyp­so Net­ballers" who won the world ti­tle in 1979 joint­ly with the Aus­tralia and New Zealand will come up against the top two teams in the world, host Aus­tralia and New Zealand in Pool A as well as Caribbean ri­vals Bar­ba­dos in round-robin play in Aus­tralia.

T&T qual­i­fied for the World Cup in 2014 af­ter win­ning the AF­NA (Amer­i­c­as Fed­er­a­tion of Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tions) Cham­pi­onship tour­na­ment in Cal­gary, Cana­da.

Pool B of the 2015 Cham­pi­onship fea­tures world third and fourth ranked teams, Eng­land and Ja­maica as well as Scot­land and Samoa, while Malawi, South Africa, Sin­ga­pore and Sri Lan­ka com­prise Pool C, and the quar­tet of Fi­ji, Wales, Ugan­da and Zam­bia make up Pool D with the match­es card­ed for the 21,000 seat All­phones Are­na (for­mer­ly known as the Syd­ney Su­per­Dome and Ac­er Are­na), Syd­ney Olympic Park.

Mean­while, lo­cal um­pire Joel "Twig­gy" Young-Strong has been se­lect­ed as one of the 18 um­pires to of­fi­ci­ate at the up­com­ing World Cham­pi­onship in Aus­tralia.

Top 15 Cur­rent World net­ball rank­ings

Teams Played Weight­ed Pts Rat­ing

1. Aus­tralia 44 32 6,377 199

2. New Zealand 46 36 6,305 175

3. Eng­land 61 44 7,041 160

4. Ja­maica 35 24 3,562 148

5. Malawi 36 26 3,511 135

6. South Africa 43 29 3,884 134

7. Fi­ji 35 25 3,024 121

8. Wales 31 22 2,440 111

9. T&T 32 26 2,549 98

10.Bar­ba­dos 34 26 2,541 98

11. Scot­land 37 29 2,754 95

12. North­ern Ire­land 37 29 2,567 89

13. Samoa 29 22 1,880 85

14. Ugan­da 14 12 999 83

15. Tan­za­nia 11 6 457 76

T&T net­ball team for Eng­land tour

Saman­tha Wal­lace, Kem­ba Dun­can, Joelisa Coop­er, Can­dice Guer­rero, Rhon­da John-Davis, Jel­lene Richard­son, Onel­la Jack, Kali­fa Mc Collin, Aman­da Cameron, Afeisha Noel, Daystar Swift, Kielle Con­nel­ly.

Tech­ni­cal staff: We­se­ly "Pepe" Gomes (coach), Grace Patkin­son-Grif­fith (as­sis­tant coach), Ke­va Stephens (fit­ness coach), Car­ol Git­tens (man­ag­er)

Eng­land tour Fix­tures

May 6: Eng­land v T&T, Sports Train­ing Vil­lage, Bath, 7:15 pm

May 8: Eng­land v T&T, Cop­per Box Are­na, Lon­don, 5:30 pm

May 11: Eng­land v T&T, Echo Are­na, Liv­er­pool, 7:15 pm

Fix­tures

May 14:

Gibral­tar vs Ire­land

T&T vs Eng­land

Scot­land vs South Africa

Wales vs North­ern Ire­land

Mal­ta vs Switzer­land

Eng­land vs South Africa

May 15:

Gibral­tar vs Mal­ta

North­ern Ire­land vs Scot­land

Wales vs T&T

Ire­land vs Switzer­land

Eng­land vs Scot­land

North­ern Ire­land vs South Africa

May 16:

Ire­land vs Mal­ta

Scot­land vs T&T

Eng­land vs Wales

Switzer­land vs Gibral­tar

T&T vs North­ern Ire­land

South Africa vs Wales

May 17:

South Africa vs T&T

Scot­land vs Wales

North­ern Ire­land vs Eng­land