Being so far away in the South Pacific, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for many of the girls to travel so far.  Furthermore, they would be playing against some of the best and far-flung teams in the world. 

In the pool stages Scotland drew a mixed bag – New Zealand (the best team in the world), Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and (not so far-flung) Northern Ireland.

In The Winning Zone caught up with two of the Scotland players, Gillian Hamilton and Claire Brownie, co-captain, before they left for the South Pacific.

WZ: How do you rate your chances against your pool opposition?

Gillian – “We are aiming to come second in our pool. The senior squad went out to play Barbados a few weeks ago, so they played their under-21s as a warm-up match, so at least we know what we are expecting when we play against them. 

Claire – “Trinidad and Tobago play a similar game.  They are very aerial and athletic and they hold up the play and then place the ball, whereas we make a lot more movement and keep the ball flat and stand still. 

“Northern Ireland are the same. They have a big ball shooter and that is their main strengths and we have to work on how to combat that and prevent that being a strength for them, so we can beat them too.

“For playing New Zealand we have our own targets as a team, New Zealand are one of the top two teams in the World alongside Australia, so they are expecting to reach the final of the Championships.  We are going out to give them a good game and make sure that we meet our own personal targets, but we are not focusing on the outcome, simply because they are so much stronger.”

WZ: So you literally have no chance against them?

Gillian – “Not really.  They get so much more netball and have so many more players compared to Scotland.  Plus they have had a lot more experience of playing at that higher level, playing against the top players in the world week in and week out in the Australia / New Zealand Championships.”

 
WZ: What preparation have you been doing for the Championships?

Gillian – “Judy Murray actually came in to speak to us, which was really helpful.  She talked about Andy and her coaching experiences and trying to help us with experience of going over there and dealing with the pressure.  It was really good.

“She said that everyone is an individual and you deal with pressure in your own way – there isn’t a best way for everyone to follow as it depends on yourself.  It was actually a really good point and you realise that you have to think for yourself.

Claire – “She covered a lot of stuff on the mentality side, like losing concentration, awareness and perspective and remembering that you are going out there to do netball as a job.   For all of us this is our first Championships.  Some people have been away with senior squads but for the majority of us this will be the first experience away and we must not to try and get overwhelmed by it.”

Gillian – “She also talked about physical preparation.  About how the more physically prepared you are, the easier it is to play well and recover.  If you have games day after day then it will be easier for you to recover and play well.  If you aren’t prepared then you won’t play as well as you can.

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In the end it was a mixed tournament for the girls.  They lost all their pool matches, but then won their games against the USA, Vanuatu and Botswana in the play-off for 17th place.

Gillian got back in touch with ITWZ post-tournament to tell us about her experiences.

“The tournament was a great experience.  We spent five days in New Zealand getting over our jet lag and played three warm up matches against local opposition. These matches were very beneficial and gave us experience against different styles of play that we were going to come up against at the World Championships.
 

“Our welcome to the Cook Islands was amazing!  There were Scotland flags and people singing and we were all presented with flowers on our heads.  We had a couple of free days before our first game, so during that time we familiarised ourselves with the venue and had a couple of training sessions.  We also visited the school that had been appointed to support us during the championships.  This was an amazing experience and the children were great.
 

“In our first game against Northern Ireland we played well in the first and third quarters but we weren't consistent over the whole match and Northern Ireland came away with a 53-40 win.  Although we were disappointed we knew we had to get over it and focus on the next game.

“We then played New Zealand.  When they played Barbados they scored over 100 goals so we set ourselves targets of not letting them score more than 80 goals.  New Zealand won the first quarter 23-5 but we knew we could do better.

"The second and third quarters the team played great netball and kept NZ from playing their normal flowing style. The game ended 78-24. This was a great score for us and it was a great team performance. We were commended by many other coaches for the great game we played.
 

“After our brilliant game against New Zealand we then faced Barbados the next day. We started well and were only down 11-8 at the end of the first quarter. We drew the next quarter and went into the second half three goals down.

"Unfortunately we lost composure in the second half and struggled, due to our inexperience against the Caribbean style and lost the game 41-27. Although our defence had been strong in the game the whole squad were very disappointed as we felt we had underperformed and should have come out with a better result.
 

“Our next game was against Trinidad and Tobago, they play the same way as Barbados so we knew what to expect. We looked like a different team from the day before and coped really well with their physical play.  However Trinidad started to fire the ball into their 6'2 shooter who rarely missed. Although we lost the game 50-35 we knew we had performed to our potential.
 

“We were all disappointed to go into the 17-20th pool but realised we had been in a very tough section. We knew we still had to beat USA, Vanuatu and Botswana to finish as high as we could.
 

“Our first game in the new section was against Vanuatu. We started off slowly, only winning the first quarter 9-7 but by the end of the second quarter we were up 20-9. We continued that tempo for the rest of the match and won the game 68-23. We were all very glad with our first win, but although we won we knew we still had a lot of work to do.
 

“Our next game was against Botswana. We came flying out the blocks and won the first quarter 16-2. We didn't manage to keep that pressure on the whole game but came out with a victory 41-31 and were pleased with a win against an unorthodox Botswana team.
 

“Our last game was against USA. We kept calm against a very physical USA side and won the first quarter 14-5. Our second quarter was a little shaky but after half time we managed to pull away and win the game 55-35.
 

“Although we were disappointed in finishing 17th we knew we had been in a tough group with New Zealand finishing 2nd, Trinidad and Tobago finishing 10th and Barbados finishing 12th.

“We all had an amazing time and have all gained valuable international experience in preparation for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014.”

RO
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