Na­tion­al se­nior net­ballers will have a tough task on re­turn to com­pe­ti­tion as the "Ca­lyp­so Girls" will com­pete in a Tri-Na­tion se­ries in Oc­to­ber host­ed by Ja­maica..

This was con­firmed by the T&T Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNA) pres­i­dent Sher­ry Ann Black­burn on Thurs­day and she added that the team will be boost­ed by T&T in­ter­na­tion­als Saman­tha Wal­lace and Kali­fa Mc­Collin, who are cur­rent­ly com­pet­ing in Aus­tralia's Sun­corp Su­per Net­ball League.

"We will play against Ja­maica and South Africa from Oc­to­ber 16-22. Present­ly we have just about 20 girls in train­ing and Saman­tha and Kali­fa, who are abroad in Aus­tralia, have both in­di­cat­ed their will­ing­ness to join the team to par­tic­i­pate in this event," said Black­burn.

Goal-shoot­er Wal­lace has been star­ring for the New South Wales Swifts in her fifth sea­son while Mc­Collin, a goal-at­tack spe­cial­ist, is mak­ing her de­but in the league with the Colling­wood Mag­pies.

Lo­cal play­ers re­sumed train­ing in mid-April un­der an in­ter­im coach­ing staff in­clud­ing coach Joel Young-Strong, as­sis­tant coach Vel­ma Hazel­wood, train­er Wayne Samuel, Coreen David (man­ag­er), Dr Liza Mo­han -Watts (psy­chol­o­gist), Kem Mel­oney (phys­io­ther­a­pist) and Vern Browne (masseuse).

"We are al­so present­ly work­ing on fi­nal­is­ing the tech­ni­cal staff for that team and we should be com­plet­ed with that process in about a week or two time," said Black­burn, who is aware of the huge chal­lenge in fac­ing the World's No 4-ranked "Sun­shine Girls" and the No 5-ranked South Africans.

"There is no doubt that this Tri-Se­ries would be a chal­lenge for us. We are go­ing up play against the fourth and fifth rank­ing teams in the World Cup. We are very op­ti­mistic about this Tri-Se­ries. We look for­ward for it, we are prepar­ing for it and we plan to com­pete strong­ly.

"We be­lieve that we would make our mark in this tour­na­ment and we will utilise it go­ing for­ward for any oth­er ma­jor events that we have to par­tic­i­pate in.

"But this tour­na­ment is com­ing at a good time and we plan to com­pete strong as I said."

There has been no net­ball com­pe­ti­tions in T&T for over a year be­cause of the on-go­ing coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic but ac­cord­ing to the TTNA pres­i­dent all, that is nec­es­sary, is be­ing done us­ing var­i­ous plat­forms to have the 10th-ranked "Ca­lyp­so Girls" pre­pared for the Tri-Se­ries.

She said, "Prepa­ra­tions are tak­ing place vir­tu­al­ly and very soon we are look­ing at a com­bi­na­tion of train­ing ef­forts which means we are hop­ing that we can do some face-to-face as well as vir­tu­al as we go along."

The na­tion­al team will al­so be keen to see progress ahead of next year's Com­mon­wealth Games set for Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land which see the top 12 ranked teams com­pete.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Net­ball Fed­er­a­tion (INF) ear­li­er this year de­layed the qual­i­fi­ca­tion dead­line for the Games in re­sponse to the pan­dem­ic. Eleven (11) of the 12 places will be de­ter­mined by the world rank­ings to join Eng­land, who have au­to­mat­i­cal­ly qual­i­fied as hosts.