T&T men’s net­ballers are up for the chal­lenge of the Amer­i­c­as Men’s Net­ball Cham­pi­onships set to pass off in St Kitts and Nevis from Sep­tem­ber 10-18.

The squad was hard at work at a de­layed prac­tice ses­sion at the East­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na (ERISA) in Tacarigua Au­gust 24 un­der the watch­ful eyes of head coach Pietra Gay.

“Prepa­ra­tion has been great for the team. As you can see, the guys are com­mit­ted; they are pas­sion­ate about sport, and they have made a com­mit­ment to T&T to be here, so with­in the prepa­ra­tion, I would like to com­mend the men for do­ing an ex­cel­lent job,” said Gay.

The ses­sion was ini­tial­ly sched­uled to take place at the Mal­oney In­door Sports Are­na, but un­for­tu­nate­ly, the venue was dou­ble-booked, so the team head­ed to ERISA and got to use the main court for the first hour of their ses­sion, cour­tesy of the na­tion­al women’s vol­ley­ball team, of­fer­ing some of its court time. There­after, they shift­ed the ses­sion to the side sec­tion of the court to con­tin­ue train­ing.

Gay praised the play­ers’ will­ing­ness to adapt to the sit­u­a­tion in front of them, and they pushed on with their prepa­ra­tion.

“I have been work­ing with them for ap­prox­i­mate­ly three months, but I’m on­ly here on the week­ends be­cause I work at THA as well as a sports de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer.

“My time is lim­it­ed, but we still grind and still go hard!”

And they will have to ‘go hard’ against teams from sev­en oth­er coun­tries, in­clud­ing the USA, Eng­land, Cana­da, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Ja­maica, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, and St Kitts & Nevis.

“I know we are play­ing Eng­land for the first match ac­cord­ing to the sched­ule we saw. Cana­da is there, USA is there, USA has, I think, three Trinida­di­ans on the team, Ja­maica is there, to name a few, so right now we are fo­cused on prepa­ra­tion,” said the for­mer WN­BA play­er.

“We are not go­ing out there to par­tic­i­pate; we are go­ing out there to com­pete, and this is what I’m try­ing to in­stil in the ‘fel­las’ with­in their minds. From the first train­ing, we have start­ed; that’s what we have been try­ing to get them in­to that men­tal game. You know it’s re­al­ly hard with old­er guys; they have fam­i­ly; they have com­mit­ments, so I think we are at a space right now where we are about 85 per cent ready, but our ob­jec­tive is to bring home a medal.”

The team re­cent­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in a prac­tice match to gauge their progress. Her as­sis­tant, Oba­di­ah Ash­er, had con­trol of the team dur­ing the prac­tice match and sub­mit­ted some vi­tal notes on the team.

“I think we still have a lot to work on the dri­ving of the ball, the short­er pass­es, and we are turn­ing over the ball too much in the cen­tre court, so prac­tice mov­ing on. We will do drills and try to elim­i­nate some of the turnovers in the game.

She added, “Shoot­ers have to be more com­fort­able with each oth­er mov­ing in the cir­cle more co­he­sive­ly right now; they are just stand­ing, and as coach­ing staff, we will work on that. 

Gay doesn’t think they are the favourites go­ing in­to the tour­na­ment but ad­vised not to take them light­ly.

“Af­ter the first game, we should be the favourites be­cause these guys are ex­cit­ing to watch. They play with heart; they play with de­sire. Our coach­ing staff is com­mend­able; we have a great team. We have a great co­he­sive­ness, the to­geth­er­ness—you know that ‘Tri­ni’ flavour,” said Gay with a grin. “We have that, so we just hope to take it abroad.”

To­mor­row, the na­tion­al men’s squad will be back on court in an­oth­er prac­tice match, which will form part of its fund-rais­ing ini­tia­tives in sup­port of the play­ers.

“We are go­ing to try to do an­oth­er fundrais­er to raise mon­ey be­cause most of the guys are un­em­ployed and I once was a play­er, so I know what it takes to come out here and ded­i­cate your time and en­er­gy. So what we try to do is we try to cook meals. We try to give them mon­ey when they don’t have to trav­el to train­ing, so we are try­ing to im­ple­ment a lot of things, and I said with time we will get bet­ter. 

“TTNA (T&T Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion) is try­ing. I must com­mend them on that with the men’s team. The lit­tle that they do is pre­cious in our eyes. I think we can move from strength to strength,” said Gay.

To­mor­row, a dou­ble head­er la­belled “Clash of the Stars” will take place at the Mal­oney In­door Sports Are­na. The first match be­tween the Un­der-21 team and the All-Stars will start at 3 pm. The na­tion­al men’s squad will face a vet­er­ans team soon af­ter. Ad­mis­sion is $20 for adults and $10 for chil­dren un­der 12. There will be half­time give­aways, and food and drinks will be on sale.