RACHAEL THOMP­SON-KING

rachael.king@guardian.co.tt

Na­tion­al net­baller Kali­fa Mc­Collin has signed with Colling­wood Mag­pies to com­pete in the Sun­corp Su­per Net­ball (SSN) League in Aus­tralia for 2021.

The an­nounce­ment was made on the SSN web­site, cit­ing that Colling­wood has locked away their shoot­ing cir­cle, sign­ing Mc­Collin and re-sign­ing Gab­by Sin­clair for the up­com­ing sea­son.

"I’m re­al­ly ex­cit­ed about mak­ing the move to Aus­tralia as it presents a new chal­lenge for me," said Mc­Collin on Mon­day. "Sun­corp Su­per Net­ball League has some of the world’s top net­ballers that I on­ly get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to play against dur­ing the World Cup so it will be great to match up against some of them week in, week out."

Mc­Collin joins the side af­ter a sea­son with the South­ern Steel in New Zealand’s ANZ Pre­mier­ship League where the 25-year-old held an im­pres­sive 84 per cent shoot­ing ac­cu­ra­cy for the 2020 sea­son. Over­all, Mc Collin tal­lied 262 goals from 313 at­tempts at 84 per cent shoot­ing av­er­age for sixth-best in the league.

"In 2021 I’ll be part­ner­ing with the likes of Shi­mona Nel­son from Ja­maica, who of­fers that Caribbean style and al­so Gab­by Sin­clair from Aus­tralia. The rest of the team is a love­ly blend of youth and ex­pe­ri­ence and I think I’ll fit right in with my play­ing style," said the vi­brant and ath­let­ic play­er, who will be joined in the goal cir­cle with Sin­clair who has re-com­mit­ted to the Mag­pies for a third term.

Mc­Collin, an ex­pe­ri­enced goal-at­tack played three sea­sons in the Unit­ed King­dom’s Su­per­league. Dur­ing her spell with the Celtic Drag­ons in the Eng­land Net­ball Su­per League, first in 2017 and then in 2019, play­ing in both the goal-at­tack and goal-shoot po­si­tions, she scored 526 and 429 goals from 567 and 472 at­tempts, re­spec­tive­ly, while in her 2018 cam­paign as a mem­ber of the benecos Mav­er­icks, she had re­turns of 225 goals from 265 at­tempts for a three-year tal­ly of 1,180 goals from 1,304 at­tempts.

Mc­Collin rep­re­sent­ed T&T’s net­ball team, the Ca­lyp­so Girls, in the 2019 Net­ball World Cup in Liv­er­pool, her sec­ond na­tion­al se­lec­tion fol­low­ing the 2015 World Cup in Syd­ney, Aus­tralia.

In the SSN re­lease, Colling­wood’s Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of Women’s Sport, Jane Wood­lands-Thomp­son, spoke high­ly about the two sign­ings as they will add great val­ue to the Pies’ at­tack end.

“Gab­by has demon­strat­ed her abil­i­ty to step up dur­ing a time of change with­in the game. Kali­fa adds in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence and holds a su­pe­ri­or shoot­ing ac­cu­ra­cy,” Wood­lands-Thomp­son said. “The pair, along with Shi­mona, will be an at­tack­ing tri­ad of strength for 2021."

Mc­Collin and Sin­clair join Mol­ly Jovic, Jo­di-Ann Ward, Ge­va Men­tor, Kelsey Browne, Shi­mona Nel­son and Ash Brazill as con­tract­ed play­ers with Colling­wood for the 2021 sea­son.

Mc Collin will be the sec­ond T&T play­er to fea­ture in the Aus­tralian League, join­ing Saman­tha Wal­lace, who for the past three sea­sons has been a key com­po­nent of the 2019 cham­pi­ons New South Wales Swifts out­fit.

"I’m al­so look­ing for­ward to meet­ing up with my fel­low coun­try­woman Sam­my Wal­lace. It’s al­ways good to have some­one from home who’ll be just a stone’s throw away," said a hap­py and ex­cit­ed Mc­Collin who on shar­ing the news on Twit­ter post­ed: "Look­ing for­ward to once again be­ing able to ex­pand and grow my game as I move on to a new en­vi­ron­ment with new chal­lenges no doubt. Ex­cit­ed to be join­ing Colling­wood Mag­pies Net­ball for my first year in the Sun­corp Su­per Net­ball League."

The for­mer na­tion­al net­ball Un­der-21 cap­tain as well as Daystar Swift, who al­so played in the ANZ Pre­mier­ship with the North­ern, are cur­rent­ly in Bar­ba­dos await­ing ex­emp­tions to re­turn to T&T which closed the bor­ders due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.