England lived up to its world third ranked rating with a comfortable 65-42 win over ninth ranked T&T Calypso netballers to take a 1-0 lead in their the first match of their Tri-Series at Sports Training Village, Bath, Somerset, England, yesterday.
The T&T women co-captained by Candice Guerrero and Joelisa Cooper started well and trailed 11-19 at the end of the first quarter, but a strong end to the first-half saw the host open a 36-24 half-time cushion.
The third period was again dominated by England which extended its advantage to 47-31 before cruising home to a 65-42 victory with the remaining matches tomorrow (Friday May 8) at Copper Box Arena, London, 5:30pm (12.30pm TT time) and Sunday May 11, at Echo Arena, Liverpool, 7:15pm (2.15pm TT time).
The match was the first international outing for the Wesley "Pepe" Gomes T&T women since they outclassed regional rival Barbados 53-46 to top the seven-team 14th edition of the International Netball Federation (INF) Americas Regional Qualifying Tournament to the INF Netball World Cup at SAIT Polytechnic, Alberta, Canada last August with a 6-0 record.
The end result was a positive one in that in their two recent previous clashes with England, T&T went under t24-56 in the first match of a Tri-Series which also included South Africa in 2013, and last year, 24-70 in the group stages of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland.
For England, it was their first match since losing a Tri-Series earlier this year where they went under in the Tri-Serie, 2-1.
The Sunshine Girls as Jamaica are known won the first match, 56-47, but England rebounded for a 55-47 victory, before Jamaica won the third and deciding match 57-47.
Following the conclusion of that series, the T&T women will then head to Belfast, Northern Ireland for the Netball Europe Ranking Competition and Open Championship, May 14-17 where they come up 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.
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.
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.