Sunshine Girls not yet out of hope

The Jamaica Sunshine Girls will be seeking an important series-levelling victory against hosts Australia when both teams clash in game two of their three-Test series tomorrow.

The Australians, who are the number-one team in the world, outclassed the Jamaicans 72–41 in the opening game on Thursday in Adelaide.

Sunshine Girls head coach Sasher-Gaye Henry-Wright said she is upbeat that the Jamaicans will produce a much better showing in today’s encounter against the Diamonds.

“We are very hopeful going into game two because for us it is about building and so we definitely want to make a big impact on our performance in our next game based of our efforts in game one,” Henry said.

“We know that there are some areas that we really want to fix and we are hoping that we will get it right for game two.”

The Sunshine Girls, who are missing several key players for the series, including captain Jhaniele Fowler, Shamera Sterling and Jodie-Ann Ward, will have to play above their usual level to secure victory against a powerful Australian side.

Signs of improvement

The Australians dominated the opening encounter, leading 34–22 at half-time and 54–30 at the end of the third period. They outscored the Sunshine Girls 18-11 in the final stanza as they surged to a comfortable victory. Captain Shanice Beckford topscored for Jamaica with 17 goals from 18 attempts, while Simone Gordon added 12 from 15 and Giselle Allison contributed 12 from 18.

Despite her team’s disappointing performance against the Australians in game one, Henry-Wright pointed to signs of improvement compared to their previous series against England in December.

“I think that we have definitely improved in certain areas of our game against Australia compared to our last series in December against England,” she said. “However, we didn’t start out well against the Australians and we made some poor errors, not Australia intercepting but our team giving away the ball easily.”

Henry highlighted ball control and decision-making as key areas the team must improve ahead of the next match.

“We definitely know that we have to work on our sharpness and our control, especially with our passes and not trying to force the ball very long, but working hard to get the ball in the circle before shooting,” Henry said.