Nigel Si­mon

T&T's "Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers" led by vet­er­an spik­er Kel­ly-Anne Billingy will be con­fi­dent of mak­ing a win­ning start to what they hope is their fi­nal round of qual­i­fiers to the FIVB World Cham­pi­onship in Italy lat­er this year when they meet lit­tle fan­cied Haiti in their 2014 NORCE­CA World Cham­pi­onship Qual­i­fy­ing Tour­na­ment, Third Round Women Group Q qual­i­fiers in La Ha­bana, Cu­ba to­day from 3pm (TT time).The four-team round-robin tour­na­ment which al­so in­volves host and fifth ranked Cu­ba and Cu­ra­cao, ranked ninth, who meet in to­day's sec­ond match from 5pm takes place at the Pala­cio De Los De­portes, Ciu­dad De­porti­va un­til Sat­ur­day at the end of which the group win­ner will qual­i­fy au­to­mat­i­cal­ly to Italy.

The sec­ond placed will have an­oth­er chance to book a tick­et to Italy but will need to over­come its op­po­nents in the Fourth and fi­nal round of qual­i­fi­ca­tion which takes place in T&T at the Jean Pierre Com­plex, Mu­cu­rapo from June 2 to 9.When qual­i­fi­ca­tion for Italy start­ed in 2012, T&T, the reign­ing five-time Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CA­ZO­VA) cham­pi­ons and sev­enth NORCE­CA-ranked team.Made light work of its round one Group A op­po­si­tion by beat­ing host Suri­name, Ba­hamas and Guade­loupe to reach the Sec­ond Round on home soil last year where it al­so dom­i­nat­ed Bar­ba­dos, Hon­duras and An­guil­la in Pool I.The Haitians, mean­while ad­vanced as the third placed team in Group C be­hind, US Vir­gin Is­lands and Cu­ra­cao in round one while they were sec­ond in Group N Round Two play be­hind Pana­ma.

Yes­ter­day, the 12-mem­ber na­tion­al women's team held their sec­ond train­ing ses­sion around mid-day at the tour­na­ment venue and af­ter­wards a con­fi­dent coach, Cuban-born Fran­cis­co "Panchee" Cruz who has been with the team for the past eight years said his team was ready to be­gin their fi­nal jour­ney to­wards Italy.Cruz said, "All the play­ers are ready, but against Haiti I will be us­ing most of the re­serve play­ers be­cause I do not ex­pect them to chal­lenge us a lot.France-based Dar­lene Ramdin, a St John's Uni­ver­si­ty grad­u­ate, now com­ing off her sec­ond pro­fes­sion­al stint with Ter­ville Flo­r­ange in France is hop­ing that her ex­pe­ri­enced gain by play­ing in Eu­rope along with oth­er team mem­bers, Chan­non Thomp­son (France), Sinead Jack (Rus­sia), Mar­isha Her­bert (Rus­sia) and Krys­tle Es­delle (Ro­ma­nia) helps the team.

Ramdin added, "We are all com­ing off of very high lev­els of club com­pe­ti­tion so I think we can bring a high­er lev­el of in­ten­si­ty to the team which will help us to reach of goal.Ramdin, like Billingy, said that the dis­ap­point­ment of not qual­i­fy­ing in 2010 is a mo­ti­va­tion­al fac­tor for her.The teams which will com­pete in the oth­er Third Round Women qual­i­fy­ing groups are Group P (Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Nicaragua, El Sal­vador, Guade­loupe) from May 13 to 19 in San­to Domin­go; Group O (USA, Pana­ma, Guatemala, Hon­duras) from May 13 to 19 in USA; Group S (Cana­da, Mex­i­co, US Vir­gin Is­lands and Ja­maica) from May 14 to 20 in Cana­da and Group R (Puer­to Ri­co, Cos­ta Ri­ca, St Lu­cia, Bar­ba­dos) from May 20-26 in Puer­to Ri­co.

T&T women's team: Rheeza Grant, Ab­by Black­man, Rechez Lind­say, Chan­non Thomp­son, Mar­isha Her­bert, Court­nee-Mae Clif­ford, Renele Ford, Jali­cia Ross-Ky­dd, Kel­ly-Anne Billingy (cap­tain), Dar­lene Ramdin, Sinead Jack, Krys­tle Es­delle.Tech­ni­cal staff: Fran­cis­co Cruz (coach), Nichol­son Drakes (as­sis­tant coach), Idalmis Gato-Moya (as­sis­tant coach), Daymi­an Stew­art (T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion pres­i­dent/Team man­ag­er), Kam­la El­cock (Chap­er­one)