Nigel Si­mon

Wes­ley "Pepe" Gomes will em­bark on his first stint as coach of the se­nior na­tion­al women's net­ball team when they par­tic­i­pate in a four-na­tion se­ries in­volv­ing Eng­land, Wales and hosts South Africa from Oc­to­ber 20-25, at the Nel­son Man­dela Met­ro­pol­i­tan Uni­ver­si­ty in South Africa.

The tour by the world ninth ranked "Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers" will serve as part of their con­tin­ued prepa­ra­tions for next year's Com­mon­wealth Games in Glas­gow, Scot­land.

Eng­land are cur­rent­ly ranked third in the world, South Africa sixth and Wales eighth.

In­clud­ed in the T&T squad se­lect­ed by Gomes, the for­mer coach of the De­fence Force bas­ket­ball cham­pi­onship teams, which will de­part for South Africa on Wednes­day are se­nior team reg­u­lars Anasta­cia Wil­son, Joelisa Coop­er, Rhon­da John-Davis, Crys­tal-Ann George, Kem­ba Dun­can, Ani­ka La Roche, Ali­cia Liv­er­pool and Onel­la Jack.

Na­tion­al Un­der-21 stand­out Kali­fa Mc Collin and Afeisha Noel al­so made the cut while Si­mone Mor­gan makes a re­turn af­ter an ab­sence of five years.

Com­ment­ing on the team se­lect­ed, Gomes, who al­so coach­es the "Army" net­ball team said: "Based on the play­ers we had avail­able for train­ing it's the best pos­si­ble we have se­lect­ed.

"The team has a lot of ex­pe­ri­enced play­ers but our main area of con­cern is the cen­tre court po­si­tion, which to me is a re­flec­tion of the state of the game in the coun­try," he said.

Re­flect­ing on the re­cent World Un­der-21 Cham­pi­onships, Gomes said it was a case of the same sit­u­a­tion where we had good shoot­ers and good de­fen­sive play­ers, but a weak area at cen­tre court.

Con­cern­ing the com­po­si­tion of the squad he was quick to note that peo­ple have been com­ment­ing for a while that the se­nior team need­ed an in­jec­tion of youth, but were not mak­ing them­selves avail­able.

Gomes added, "When we start­ed train­ing for this team we had a few of the play­ers from the Un­der-21 teams com­ing around, but most of them dropped out af­ter at­tend­ing a few ses­sions.

"They [younger play­ers] need to make them­selves avail­able and like the oth­er play­ers proved their fit­ness and work eth­ic to make the cut. Its not a mat­ter of be­cause you were a mem­ber of the Un­der-21s and some­one feels you should be on the se­nior team you are guar­an­teed a pick. You have to prove your worth, whether your a se­nior or ju­nior mem­ber.

"In the end, two mem­bers of the ju­nior team in Jenice Mc In­tosh and Mc Collin came to the ses­sions in their en­tire­ty with Mc Collin gain­ing se­lec­tion," he said.

With re­gards to oth­er play­ers like Un­der-21 USA-based Saman­tha Wal­lace, Kielle Con­nel­ly and Tri­cia Liv­er­pool, Gomes–who al­so coached Po­lice net­ball squad–said the trio were un­avail­able due to var­i­ous rea­sons.

Dur­ing the tri-na­tion tour­na­ment in South Africa, each team will play each oth­er twice. This comes on the heels of Eng­land's 3-0 se­ries sweep of South Africa in the Three-Test Sep­tem­ber tour of Eng­land. Eng­land won the first match 53-41 and fol­lowed up with 51-33 and 49-38 wins in the sec­ond and third match­es.

Next year in Glas­gow at the Com­mon­wealth Games, the "Ca­lyp­so Spik­ers" will com­pete in a tough six-team Pool B against World Cham­pi­ons Aus­tralia, Eng­land, South Africa, Wales and neigh­bours Bar­ba­dos. New Zealand, Ja­maica, Malawi, Scot­land, North­ern Ire­land and St Lu­cia will com­pete in Pool A.

To­day, the lo­cal women's team will con­tin­ue their train­ing with a prac­tice match against a se­lect­ed squad from 5.30 pm at the Jean Pierre Com­plex, Mu­cu­rapo fol­lowed by two more ses­sions on Sun­day at Mu­cu­rapo from 7 am to 10 am and then Tues­day at the East­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na, Tacarigua from 5.30 pm to 8 pm.

T&T women's net­ball squad: Anasta­cia Wil­son, Joelisa Coop­er, Kali­fa Mc Collin, Afeisha Noel, Rhon­da John-Davis, Onel­la Jack, Ashelle Legall, Si­mone Mor­gan, Crys­tal Ann George, Kem­ba Dun­can, Ali­cia Liv­er­pool, Ani­ka La Roche.

Tech­ni­cal staff: Wes­ley Gomes (coach), Car­ol Git­tenss (man­ag­er) Oba Gul­ston (phys­io­ther­a­pist), Zephyri­nus Nicholas (phys­io­ther­a­pist/train­er)