RACHAEL THOMPSON-KING
rachael.king@guardian.co.tt
Americas Federation of Netball Associations champion, T&T, will take on Caribbean rival Jamaica at next year's World Cup in Liverpool, England after the draw for the tournament took place on Saturday night.
The "Calypso Girls" seeded 10th in the world, were drawn in Group C alongside the Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Jamaica as well as South Africa and Fiji, at the draw in Nottingham for the 16-team tournament.
Defending champion Australia, the top seed which is seeking a 12th title, is in Group A along with Northern Ireland, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka. Commonwealth Games champion and host England has been drawn to play with Scotland, Uganda and Samoa in Group D
In Group B, New Zealand, runner-up to Australia in 2015, will get the chance to avenge the team's shock defeat to Malawi at the Commonwealth Games in April. Barbados and Singapore are the other countries in the group.
In February, the International Netball Federation (INF) announced a new format for the World Cup, which will see teams compete in three stages: the preliminaries stage one from July 12-14, the preliminaries stage two from July 15-18 and the playoffs and placings match from July 19-21.
"How it’s set up the first three go forward to the second round but your points also go forward so we will be preparing to achieve a top two spot," said national coach Wesley "Pepe" Gomes, yesterday.
In stage one, teams will compete in four round-robin groups (A, B, C and D) which each consist of four teams. Teams are assigned to their preliminary groups by seeding based on their world rankings.
The top eight teams are pre-assigned to groups, with one team from the 9th-12th seeds and one from the 13th-16th seeds drawn randomly into each group. The top three finishers in each group will then progress to the stage two to compete for the title.
In the second stage, the top three teams from groups A and B will form group F, and the top three teams from groups C and D will form group G. The bottom four finishers from groups A-D will compete for 13th-16th places in group E.
Where teams in groups F and G have already played each other in stage one, these results will carry through to the stage two. The teams finishing first and second in groups F and G will go through to the semi-finals, with the top placed team in each group facing the second placed team in the other group. The winners of each semi-final will compete for gold in the final, with the losers playing for bronze.
The teams finishing third and fourth in groups F and G will compete for final positions fifth to eighth – third in one group plays fourth in the other – with the winners playing off for fifth place and the losers for seventh. The teams that finish fifth in groups F and G will play off for ninth and 10th places. The teams that finish last in groups F and G will play off for 11th and 12th places.
In Group E, the top two teams from group E will play off for 13th and 14th place and the bottom two teams will play off for 15th and 16th place.
The national senior netballers will start against fifth-ranked South Africa on July 12 after the opening ceremony on court two as organisers confirmed the schedule for the event after the draw.
"One of our goals forward is to be in the top five," said Gomes. "So to be in the top five we will have to defeat number five."
T&T will then meet the "Sunshine Girls" of Jamaica the following day and Gomes knows they will be his team's toughest challenge in the group not discrediting the other teams, saying: "Yes they are and South Africa is one of the emerging teams fighting to break into the top four."
All nations have been waiting for the draw for the World event to be able to forecast whom they're going to be up against and prepare the team.
"We start from now," said Gomes on setting game plans for each team.
Last week, the squad participated in a practice match against the men's national team, who are preparing for the Men's Federation next weekend.
He said, "Preparation started Wednesday and we played against the men's team on Friday. It was more to facilitate the men’s team. I used it to see how the new players would fit in, looking at their fitness and how they adapted to team concepts."
At the draw, INF president Molly Rhone was in attendance and she said: "Netball has never been more exciting and I know this will be a fierce and closely-fought competition from start to finish."