Coach disappointed with ‘poor performance’ from Sunshine Girls - Jamaica netball team receive hammering by England Roses in Horizon Vitality Series

National senior team netball head coach, Sasher-Gaye Henry, has admitted that she is deeply disappointed and saddened by the Sunshine Girls' poor showing against England Roses in their two-match Horizon Vitality Series, which ended in a heavy defeat for the hosts on Sunday.

The Sunshine Girls, who fielded a team without the majority of the nation's best players for the series - due to the absence of seven senior players - were outclassed 81-30 in the second match at the Copper Box Arena in London, England. The Jamaicans trailed 38-16 at half time and 60-25 at the end of the third stanza.

The Jamaicans also went down heavily in the opening encounter on Saturday, losing 80-37, as England swept the series with commanding performances on both days.

Henry, reflecting on Sunday's defeat, did not hide her disappointment with the overall display from her team as she outlined that they played poorly in both matches.

"It was really a poor performance from us in terms of our abilities," said Henry. "It is a big loss and it is something that we are not pleased about because we felt that we should have shown much more improvements.

"So definitely, as a group, we have to take accountability and go back to really push hard to improve on our performance."

SHORTCOMINGS EXPOSED

Henry noted that the series was always going to be challenging, especially with the experimentation required in a major tour, but she pointed out that the shortcomings were clearly exposed.

"We have to look back at the areas that we were really lacking in. We have to also look at this rotation in a major tour," she said.

"The rotations were different and they were new and we had to see the depth that we have and we recognised our shortfalls and definitely have to go back and fix them heading into our next series," Henry stated.

"I think that we didn't capitalise today on how we would want to capitalise in terms of England's errors. I think we had an increase in terms of our turnovers and we had a decrease in our shooting attempts on goal and I think it is something that we really need to work on, in terms of taking that ball into our shooters," she said.

LEARNING EXPERIENCE

Despite the disappointing results, Henry stressed that the series also provided valuable learning experience for a young group still finding its way at the international level.

"It is a young team and I know that they have not had that experience and for that we just have to look at how we can build on each player heading into our next series," she said.

"However, there were a lot of positives that we can take from this game because we really started out much better than we did in the first match because we really held them up. But I think that we were not able to mentally and physically stay in the game."

Henry stressed that structural discipline and decision-making are areas that need urgent attention going forward and once these areas of the team are addressed then they can definitely return to winning ways.

"I think we still tend to not play in a structure and England did that well. I think persons did not know when to drive and so the inexperience of the players really showed, especially in our midcourt play, and we need to definitely improve on that," she stressed.