Wilson elated as Sunshine Girls end pool play by dominating Wales

WILSON... I was very pleased to actually see what we were able to do out on the court with different combinations (Photo: AFP) JAMAICA’S netball players went back to the drawing board and the result was a comprehensive 74-28 win over Wales at Hydro Arena in Glasgow, Scotland, on Thursday as they completed their first-round schedule at the 23rd Commonwealth Games. The Jamaicans finished second in Pool B with eight points to advance to a semi-final match versus Australia. The contest will be a repeat of the gold medal match four years ago in Birmingham, England, which Australia won 55-51. At this edition Jamaica’s Sunshine Girls opened their account with an 81-22 win over Trinidad and Tobago, but then lost 48-53 to New Zealand. They rebounded to defeat Uganda 55-49 and Scotland 45-43 before ending the preliminary stage with the lopsided win over the Welsh team. Goal defence Latanya Wilson said they realised where they had been going wrong and made adjustments in time for the match against Wales. “We weren’t playing the brand of netball that we wanted to see out there on court, and so we went back to the drawing board, did some analysis, and it was just some simple errors that we saw that we spoke about, and then we said we were going to fix it on court,” she said after the game. “I was very pleased to actually see what we were able to do out on the court with different combinations as well.” She said a major difference for them was going back to basics. “I think we were hungry tonight, first. We had connection, we were a lot more patient with the ball, and we cherished the ones that we got. Because when we went back and we did some analyses, we realised that we weren’t scoring from our game possession… So we spoke about that and we were able to actually do it in the game today.” Jamaica got off to a good start and never eased off the gas pedal. They led 13-11 after the first quarter, but an utterly dominant second quarter took the match away from the Welsh team, with the Jamaicans leading 36-18 at half-time. They extended the lead to 52-23 at the end of the third quarter before closing out the victory. Romelda Aiken-George and Shanice Beckford both scored 26 goals, Azara Wilmot added 16 and Rhea Dixon contributed six for Jamaica. Georgia Rowe led Wales with 18 goals, while Phillipa Yarranton scored six and Zoe Mattewman had three. In women’s weightlifting, Krystal Campbell was 10th overall in the +86kg class with a total of 176kgs, after she lifted 76kg in the snatch and 100kgs in the clean and jerk. — Paul A Reid