The big game today will be against host St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados who are ranked 12th and 11th in the world respectively, at 6:45pm. I would give the edge to St. Vincent who have home court advantage. Barbados however will be fighting to remain seeded ahead of its nemesis St. Vincent, these two know each other well and have a long history of fighting for Caribbean supremacy. Take Jamaica out of the equation, for the Eastern Caribbean, this is one of the unofficial finals, last night's game between Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados was another. Starting from their historic three way tie in Antigua in 1992, which was repeated the following year, these three teams are the teams to step up their administration and game and take the Caribbean up the world ranking.
Trinidad takes on St. Lucia in the the second game at 6:15pm. They are expected to win, but judging from St. Lucia's first quarter against Jamaica, the Trinidadians cannot take this very defensive team for granted.
In the first game of the evening, the Canadians will be staring at their second defeat as they take on the world's fouth seeded team, Jamaica. I suspect that coach Francis will use her full under 21 squad for this game. Last night she used four against St. Lucia. I think an acid test of the strength of the rest of teams in the tournament will be how many of Jamaica's seven under 21s that their are grooming for next year's worlds, will they be able to play against the other countries first teams. This also says a lot about the wide gap between Jamaica and the rest of the Americas.
1 comment:
Love your commentary even though Canada are not doing so well:-( It is great to be able to get some info on what is happening out there.
Oh and very nice photo of Michael!:-)
Liz Daubney - Alberta Netball.
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