WITH THE Netball World Cup still ongoing, the President of the Barbados Netball Association (BNA) believes it is still too early to say whether there will be changes in the national team when it returns home.
In an interview yesterday with SUNSPORT, BNA President Nisha Craigwell stated that she did not want to comment on whether they would be changes or not at this juncture. Craigwell noted that, as customary, they will do an analysis on the team’s performance and move from there.
There have been calls both within and outside the netball family for the removal of head coach Anna Shepherd but Craigwell pointed out that Shepherd previously coached Barbados to its highest ever world placing. Back in 1987 Shepherd led Barbados to a sixth place finish at the then World Championships.
“All I am saying is that she is not a new coach. She coached Barbados to its highest ever world ranking and the next coach to have come close was Harriett Waithe in 2003 when she took Barbados to seventh.
“We seem to build up our ranking in between World Cups and we need to find a way to ensure that we maintain or move up in the rankings,” said Craigwell.
The president did admit they were expecting to finish at least ninth at the World Cup.
“With the group that were in, we expected to finish third because we knew we couldn’t beat Australia nor New Zealand, so we were aiming to defeat Trinidad and Tobago in order to finish ninth overall.
“We did not expect to lose to T&T and lose by such a large margin and that pushed us into the play-off for ninth to 16th place,” she said.
Yesterday, Barbados defeated Singapore and will play Zambia in the 13th-14th play-off match.