By Iva Wharton
The Guyana Netball Association (GNA) is negotiating with an overseas coach to provide training for the national team to contest the Americas Federation of Netball Associations (AFNA) tournament scheduled for Trinidad in July.
President of GNA, Kim Kyte-John, speaking with Stabroek Sport, said that recently returned from Jamaica where she had talks with Jamaica’s netball officials.
According to Kyte-John, the intention was to have a coach from Jamaica come here but the coach identified would not be available and another Jamaican coach who resides in the United States was identified.
She said the Jamaican netball officials are very anxious to assist the GNA to secure the best coach possible.
“That coach would be with the team for the most two weeks, but the main coach is Lavern Fraser-Thomas,” she said.
The GNA president said that a squad of 22 was selected from the following clubs: Doves, Emanie, All Stars and Bank of Guyana.
She added that the players selected are all seasoned netball players and most of them have some international exposure. Given the nature of the competition, Kyte-John said it would not be a wise decision to select players who are new to the sport as it would not work to the advantage of the team with such a short preparation time.
Fraser-Thomas said that the first training session starts tomorrow and will see players training three days per week: Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
“These times have been coined to facilitate the participation of those persons who have to travel from Berbice and we also do have some players who are preparing for CSEC and based on their lesson times coined these times so that each player is afforded an equal opportunity to be selected to form the team.”
Fraser-Thomas added that she will be receiving assistance from GNA Secretary Shanomae Baptiste, who is the assistant coach.
She said that based on the players selected, she was confident that the girls are ready for such a competition as they understand what is at stake.
“As the coach I am a little excited I must say. I am excited because this will be the first time that I am having the opportunity of working with a squad of netball players who have all had international exposure and their skill level is where it should be in preparation for international duty. Most times before I would have had to work with people who are now learning the skills and who would not have had this kind of exposure so it would have been a little more tedious.”
At this stage her focus, she said, would be to ensure that the players are physically prepared which means that they can go straight into game preparation.
She also said that she is not too worried about many of the teams they have to face as there is no new breaking ground, given that they would have competed against many of the teams before at one time or the other.
Asked about what this tournament means for Guyana, Fraser-Thomas commented: “I think that it means that netball does not become one of the sports that Guyana used to play. . . . With most of the players out of the Under-16 category, if we are unable to offer them this kind of competition it means that it would be only participation locally. And even that in itself would not be enough to motivate those players to continue playing the game.”
This, she added, is also an opportunity to get some of the younger players involved in the sport.
GNA Secretary Baptiste via telephone said that to date close to 15 teams have confirmed their participation in the tournament, among them are Jamaica, host Trinidad, St. Lucia, Barbados, Grenada, Bermuda, United States and Canada. Grenada and Bermuda are new to the sport.
She also said that given the nature of the tournament, the GNA has organised a number of fundraising activities to assist with travelling expenses and purchasing of uniforms for the team. The fundraising activities include a dinner and a raffle.
