T&T play­ers will de­part for this year’s World Youth (Un­der-21) Net­ball Cup in Gibral­tar, ea­ger to face their ri­vals.

The 13-mem­ber squad is set to leave T&T on Fri­day (Sep­tem­ber 12), and cap­tain Maikea Bram­ble says her col­leagues are proud to fly the na­tion­al flag at the glob­al com­pe­ti­tion.

“It is a great ho­n­our to rep­re­sent our coun­try. I think we are ful­ly pre­pared and ready to go out there and com­pete. We just want to go there and make a brand name for our­selves and show­case our tal­ent all the hard work we have put in the last cou­ple of months and al­so to en­cour­age young girls if you push and con­tin­ue to do our best,” said the goal-shoot­er (GS), dur­ing a lun­cheon host­ed by the Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel last Fri­day (Sep­tem­ber 5), ex­press­ing ap­pre­ci­a­tion to the coach­es and team of­fi­cials.

“We want to thank our tech­ni­cal staff for their hard work be­cause with­out them, it would not be pos­si­ble. I would like to thank our sup­port­ers and fam­i­lies for con­tin­u­ing to en­cour­age us and giv­ing us that sup­port that is need­ed as we em­bark on this jour­ney.”

Mean­while, the pres­i­dent of the lo­cal net­ball body, Net­ball T&T (NTT), Deb­bie-Ann Fran­cois, en­cour­aged the play­ers to give their all.

She said, “The road has been long and te­dious. I know you have worked very hard. We know you are go­ing to do your best.”

Fran­cois praised the sup­port of the spon­sors, head­ed by the Min­istry of Sports and Youth Af­fairs, adding, “Spe­cial thanks to Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT) and by ex­ten­sion the Min­istry (of Sport and Youth Af­fairs). Had it not been for them, our jour­ney, our road to Gibral­tar would not have been fruit­ful or even pos­si­ble.”

She sin­gled out the man­ag­er of Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel, Bar­ry Be­dasie, for his long-stand­ing sup­port of net­ball.

“We re­al­ly want to thank Mr. Be­dasie for gen­er­ous­ly and gra­cious­ly hav­ing this lun­cheon for you all, spon­sor­ing it and hav­ing you all here. So we re­al­ly thank him for work­ing with net­ball over the years since back in 2012. He con­tin­ues to spon­sor and sup­port net­ball in what­ev­er way,” said Fran­cois.

Sports De­vel­op­ment Of­fi­cer at SporTT, Ja­son Jo­han Williams, shared on the col­lab­o­ra­tion with his or­gan­i­sa­tion and the na­tion­al net­ball as­so­ci­a­tion.

He said, “So far with this new ex­ec­u­tive, we have re­al­ly had a sol­id foun­da­tion, and it goes a long way with con­tin­u­ing that con­ver­sa­tion back and forth and not let­ting it be one di­rec­tion. It is re­al­ly, re­al­ly im­por­tant in where we are at right now.

“SporTT has been work­ing with this par­tic­u­lar team from since (the qual­i­fiers in) Guade­loupe (in Ju­ly 2024) and be­fore. So, just to see the progress from then to now, it is re­al­ly nice to hear. I viewed them train­ing once.”

T&T qual­i­fied for the 2025 World Net­ball Youth Cup af­ter fin­ish­ing third in the Amer­i­c­as Qual­i­fiers in Guade­loupe in Ju­ly 2024.

The na­tion­al youth team has been drawn in Pool C in Gibral­tar along with Fi­ji, South Africa, Malawi and Caribbean neigh­bour Bar­ba­dos. T&T will face Fi­ji first on Sep­tem­ber 20, fol­lowed by Malawi (Sep­tem­ber 21), South Africa (Sep­tem­ber 22) and Bar­ba­dos (Sep­tem­ber 23). The top two teams will ad­vance to the quar­ter­fi­nals set for Sep­tem­ber 25, with the semi­fi­nals card­ed for Sep­tem­ber 26 and the fi­nals on Sep­tem­ber 28.

The lo­cal girls bowed out in the pool stage at the last edi­tion of the tour­na­ment in 2017 in Botswana and fin­ished in 14th spot. The 2021 com­pe­ti­tion was can­celled due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. T&T end­ed in eighth spot at the 2013 cham­pi­onships host­ed in Scot­land and 10th in 2009.

T&T U-21 con­tin­gent

Team: Maikea Bram­ble (cap­tain)-GS, Rick­ibah Isaac (vice cap­tain)-C/WA, Nichola Gill-WD, Ker­lene John­son-WD, Kalvinelle Roberts-GK, Keiko Roy-GA, Neke­sha Gomes-GK/GS, Ja­da Hamil­ton-GA, Jeni­cia Goodridge-WA/WD, Aza­lia Oliv­er­ie-WA/WD, Sophia Her­nan­dez-WD, Kayleea Songui-C/WA, Makay­la Grant(re­serve)-GA.

Staff: Kali­fa Mc Collin (coach), Crys­tal-Ann George (as­sis­tant coach), Coreen An­drews (mas­sage ther­a­pist), Tamia Sobers (sport psy­chol­o­gist), Roland Hamil­ton (phys­i­cal train­er), Joel Cares­quero (phys­io­ther­a­pist).