Robert Bailey, Freelance Writer

From left: Sharon Wiles, Paula Thompson, Romelda Aiken and Sahsa-Gaye Henry display their bronze medals, won at the World Netball Championships, in New Zeland. The team returned home yesterday after edging England 53-52 for third place. - Photo by LeVaughn Flynn

Sports Minister Olivia 'Babsy' Grange has lauded Jamaica's Sunshine Girls for their bronze medal placing at this year's World Netball Championships (WNC), which ended in Auckland, New Zealand, on Saturday.

Grange was speaking at a reception held for the team upon arrival at the Norman Manley International Airport, yesterday morning.

"I want to welcome you as champions, because you're our champions," said Grange. "I want to tell them how much we love you. Jamaica loves you and how much the Government is fully behind them. We are going to surround you with love and give you all the help we can give you," she said.

The Sunshine Girls won the bronze medal after defeating archrivals England 53-52 to win the third-place play-off. Romelda Aiken claimed 30 goals from 38 attempts and Simone Forbes, 23 from 28. Louisa Brownfield, 29 goals from 35 tries and Pamela Cookey, 23 from 29 were the scorers for England.

"I want to congratulate the team on bringing home the bronze medal. You have the talents and you showed how to use these skills. We have been talking to the manager of the team and we will have some good news for you shortly, which is going to be for another occasion," said Grange.

Connie Francis, the team's coach, said hard work and dedication paid off.

"I was very happy, especially for the girls, because throughout our struggles in our preparation, this has proven that we can win and this was really good and so, I was elated," said Francis.

"I thought the youngsters in the team rose to the occasion. I was proud of Christina (Solmon) and our rookie, Paula (Thompson), because they got an opportunity to showcase that they deserve to be on our team and they did extremely well."

A lot of youth, experience

Francis added that what makes this team wonderful is the fact that they have so much youth and experience.

"Netball is alive because this is a sport that I would encourage any youngster to take up, I will even encourage my own daughter to play the game because it is fun and it gives you an opportunity to meet other people all over the world and go many different places."

She added: "It is not how you start your preparation because we are not as fortunate like Australia, New Zealand and England to constantly be playing against each other. The only time we get an opportunity to play against these teams is during the World Championships or the Commonwealth Games, so I was really upset to lose those practice games earlier in the season."

Francis added: "We went into the championships very positive because we allowed everyone to play in our practice games, so everybody was very upbeat before it started. Then we started to work on our strategy, analysing each team and this worked for us throughout the tournament."