Rhon­da John-Davis has been se­lect­ed for her sixth Net­ball World Cup.

The na­tion­al cap­tain will be mak­ing his­to­ry for the "Ca­lyp­so Girls" who will take on the best teams in the world in Liv­er­pool, Eng­land from Ju­ly 12-21.

"First of all, it is al­ways an ho­n­our to rep­re­sent your coun­try and once you are se­lect­ed to rep­re­sent your coun­try at the world stage it brings great pride not just to you alone but your fam­i­ly as well. It feels re­al­ly good," said an ex­cit­ed John-Davis on the news that she was se­lect­ed on the team on Sat­ur­day.

"For me, it's not just about be­ing se­lect­ed on a team, it's not just about mak­ing my sixth World Cup. Yes, it is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to bring his­to­ry to T&T but it's not about that alone for me.

"I am very com­pet­i­tive and I want to be able to com­pete at that lev­el and be able to bring back vic­to­ry for T&T, to bring back the tro­phy for T&T and so that is what it is about com­pet­ing with my team­mates and be­ing able to step up to do my part, to do what is ex­pect­ed of me."

Head coach Wes­ley "Pepe" Gomes ex­pects much from his vet­er­an play­er, who he says is key to the na­tion­al unit for her lead­er­ship and ex­pe­ri­ence.

"Rhon­da brings sta­bil­i­ty to the team," said Gomes. "She brings to the team her knowl­edge and her ex­per­tise. She has a lot of in­flu­ence on the play­ers and they have great re­spect for her. She keeps them fo­cused on the game.

"Rhon­da is still play­ing at a very high lev­el. The play­ers did the Yo-Yo (en­durance) test and they all ex­ceed­ed the re­quire­ments with some reach­ing 20. Rhon­da reached 19.1. She stuck with the younger ones."

Gomes stayed with most of the play­ers that helped T&T qual­i­fy for the World Cup af­ter play­ing un­beat­en to win the Amer­i­c­as Fed­er­a­tion of Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tions (AF­NA) Qual­i­fiers last year in Bar­ba­dos in­clud­ing pro­fes­sion­al play­ers Saman­tha Wal­lace and Kali­fa Mc­Collin, Shaquan­da Greene, Can­dice Guerero, Tahi­rah Hollingsworth, Onel­la Jack-Hill, Daystar Swift and sis­ters Shantel and Sh­ernece Seemu­n­gal.

"It is a well-bal­anced team," said Gomes. "Eight of them are un­der the age of 25, four are old­er and out of the eight, Saman­tha and Kali­fa are play­ing at the high­est lev­el avail­able at this time."

The new­com­ers in­clude shoot­er/de­fend­er Jameela Mc­Carthy and de­fend­er To­bag­on­ian Aniecia Bap­tiste, both who have rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the youth lev­el.

"Jameela comes in for Joelisa Coop­er, who is present­ly part of the Fire Ser­vice re­cruit­ment unit and Bap­tiste comes in for Kem­ba Dun­can due to in­jury," said Gomes. "Jameela can play on both ends of the court and Ane­i­cia is a younger ver­sion of Kem­ba. She fit in well with the team. She is the per­fect fit."

His cap­tain agreed and said: "The com­bi­na­tion is re­al­ly good. We have a com­bi­na­tion of youth an ex­pe­ri­ence. The young play­ers that tran­si­tion from the Un­der-21 stage, they are re­al­ly do­ing well. They have worked hard to be able to get se­lect­ed on the se­nior team. They are re­al­ly do­ing well. I am proud of each and every sin­gle one of the play­ers that made the team and even the ones that were not se­lect­ed.

"We worked hard, we pushed each oth­er but it's on­ly 12 peo­ple could go through. I am proud of that mix and I am just look­ing for­ward to the World Cup."

Gomes with sup­port from his as­sis­tant coach Grace Parkin­son-Grif­fith will be mak­ing full use of the lim­it­ed time be­fore the world event be­gins.

"We still have six weeks to go so we are go­ing to in­ten­si­fy every­thing," said Gomes who cri­tiqued his team against a men's team on Fri­day at the Jean Pierre Com­plex in Mu­cu­rapo.

Team: Jameela Mc­Carthy, Ane­i­cia Bap­tiste, Saman­tha Wal­lace, Kali­fa Mc­Collin, Shaquan­da Greene, Can­dice Guerero, Tahi­rah Hollingsworth, Onel­la Jack-Hill, Rhon­da John-Davis, Shantel Seemu­n­gal, Sh­ernece Seemu­n­gal, Daystar Swift.

Staffe: Wes­ley "Pepe" Gomes (coach), Grace Parkin­son-Grif­fith (as­sis­tant coach), Car­ol Dem­ming (man­ag­er), Wayne Samuel (train­er)