Rachael Thomp­son-King

New­ly in­stalled cap­tain of T&T net­ball team, Ani­ka La Roche, in­ter­est lies on­ly in the "Ca­lyp­so Girls" de­fend­ing their Amer­i­c­as Fed­er­a­tion of Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tions (AF­NA) ti­tle and she be­lieves she is lead­ing a unit, whose fo­cus is in the right place. The AF­NA tour­na­ment is be­ing host­ed by the T&T Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNA) and will run from Ju­ly 14-21 at the Jean Pierre Com­plex in Mu­cu­rapo. "I do be­lieve the team is ready be­cause of the wealth of tal­ent, youth and ex­pe­ri­ence that we are com­prised of," said La Roche, who is in her first stint as skip­per of the lo­cal team. A post she is rel­ish­ing, af­ter mak­ing the pro­gres­sion from vice-cap­tain, with the full sup­port of her team­mates.

"For me it is a priv­i­lege to be giv­en this ho­n­our. I'm be­ing sup­port­ed by my team­mates and co-cap­tain Can­dice Guerero which makes this ap­point­ment even more of a bless­ing," said La Roche. "Be­cause of the to­tal sup­port I have been re­ceiv­ing. I don't think of it as a chal­lenge." La Roche has been a fix­ture on the se­nior na­tion­al team since 2007 when T&T placed 11th at the World Net­ball Cham­pi­onships which was played in Ja­maica. Four years lat­er in Sin­ga­pore at the 13 edi­tion of the world event, she helped the "Ca­lyp­so Girls" im­prove to sev­enth spot. Now with the AF­NA tour­na­ment be­ing a qual­i­fi­er for the World tour­na­ment, the goal-keep­er/goal-de­fence is bank­ing on T&T du­pli­cat­ing its per­for­mance when it won the last AF­NA com­pe­ti­tion in 2010 in St Lu­cia. Top Caribbean side Ja­maica missed that edi­tion but will com­pete this around un­der­coach Oberon Pit­ter­son-Nat­tie. "We will be look­ing for­ward to com­pet­ing against Ja­maica and all oth­er par­tic­i­pants for this is what we have been prepar­ing for. Truth be told, we have had some stum­bling blocks along the way. But this team is ful­ly com­mit­ted to com­ing out and giv­ing our all for T&T," shared La Roche, who al­so served as vice-cap­tain in St Lu­cia.

Apart from the "Sun­shine Girls" of Ja­maica, T&T which is equipped with the likes of top shoot­ers Janelle Bark­er, Anas­tas­cia Wil­son, Joelisa Coop­er, cen­tre-court play­ers Rhon­da John-Davis, Guer­rero and de­fend­er Crys­tal Ann George, a for­mer Sports­woman of the Year" nom­i­nee, will match skills against Bar­ba­dos, Bermu­da, Cana­da, Guyana, St Lu­cia, USA and Grena­da. Hop­ing to make full use of be­ing the host. "I see play­ing at home as an ad­van­tage for us fa­mil­iar sur­round­ings, home court sup­port the op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case our­selves, to our be­hind the scene sup­port­ers like our fam­i­lies and friends," de­clared La Roche. T&T which is be­ing coached by for­mer na­tion­al play­er Jen­nifer Frank and Althea Mc­Collin, will open against Guyana at 5.30 pm fol­low­ing the pa­rade of teams and open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, 4 pm. The team present­ly trains six days per week at the com­plex. And cap­tain La Roche ex­pects the venue, to be packed with sup­port­ers, ready to back the lo­cal net­ballers. "We have a strong team. And I can on­ly re­it­er­ate this by say­ing the ded­i­ca­tion, sac­ri­fice and hard work that these ladies have por­trayed dur­ing our lim­it­ed prepa­ra­tion time is strength, with­in it­self. "We are just look­ing for­ward to T&T com­ing out and giv­ing us their sup­port."

Team

Shoot­ers: Janelle Bark­er, Anas­tas­cia Wil­son, Jel­lene Richars­d­son, Joelisa Coop­er

Cen­tre court: Tri­cia Liv­er­pool, Rhon­da John-Davis, Onel­la Jack, Can­dice Guer­rero

De­fence: Crys­tal Ann George, Ali­cia Liv­er­pool, Ani­ka La Roche, Kem­fa Phillip

Stand­by: Saman­tha Wal­lace, Si­mone Bowen, Daystar Swift