National coach Connie Francis. - Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer

Jamaica's Sunshine Girlz are aiming for a winning start when they shoot off their World Netball Championship (WNC) campaign against Cook Islands on Sunday (12:10 a.m. local time) in Auckland, New Zealand.

Hyacinth Smith, manager of the team, said they are expecting nothing but a victory in tonight's opening clash.

"The girls are pretty confident and rearing to go because playing a team like Cook Islands who are raked at number 11 in the world we are expecting to come out on top," said Smith.

"Our main aim in this tournament is that we want to be playing in the final on the last day, so we want to make sure we start off with a victory," she said.

The Connie Francis-coached team, ranked at number three in the world, defeated the New Zealand Under-21 team in a warm-up game on Wednesday, but the Group C match signals the start of the real thing.

Jamaica won bronze on home soil at the last WNC in 2003 and have retained seven players from that team, including experienced goal shooter and captain, Elaine Davis, goal attack Simone Forbes, centre Nadine Bryan, Sharon Wiles, Nadine Bryan Byfield, Nichala Gibson and Kasey Evering.

Besides Cook Islands, Fiji Islands and Singapore are the other nations participating in Group C. Providing Jamaica finish in the top two, they will advance to the quarter-finals, from where they will launch their bid for the medal round.

TOP EIGHT STATUS

Meanwhile the Cook Islands will be determined to regain the top eight status it achieved at four World Cham-pionships, before its disappointing 11th placing in 2003.

They are coached by former New Zealand player, Ana Noovao, and drawn largely from New Zealand-based players.

The team will be led by Ritua Petero, a member of the 1999 Cook Islands World Championship team, and Angela Tangimetua, top shooter at the 1995 world tournament.

Meanwhile, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados will also begin their schedule later. Barbados, competing in a tough Group D, will take on England. South Africa and Malaysia are also in their group.

Trinidad and Tobago, in the meantime, will face number two ranked Australia. They're competing in Group B, which also has Scotland and Samoa.

Australian captain, Liz Ellis, said she believed the tournament would be highly competitive with the top four teams having a chance of taking top honours.

"The standard has improved. I think Australia and New Zealand have set a high standard in recent years," she said.

"England has certainly come up to that standard and is starting to surpass it and Jamaica, on their day and with all their players available, is also capable of doing that."