S'pore netball stands tall

S'pore netball stands tall

SINGAPORE - Fighting back from a six-point deficit in the first quarter, Singapore defeated arch rivals Sri Lanka 59-41 yesterday in the final of the Mission Foods Asian Netball Championship on home soil.

It was the Republic's second successive Asian title and one of their largest victory margins against the four-time champions, whom they beat by a solitary point in the 2012 final.

All the pre-match talk from Sri Lanka had centred on how Singapore needed to stop their 2.06m goal shooter Tharjini Sivalingam.

But what they did not bargain for was that they needed to stop not just one but seven Singaporean players in the final at the Sports Hub's OCBC Arena.

The Republic's game plan of defending as a unit all over the court paid off as they recorded a resounding 18-point victory to win their third Asian crown.

Said Singapore coach Ruth Aitken: "Our approach to facing Sri Lanka was about team defence. We couldn't expect our goalkeeper (1.96m tall Chen Lili) to hold off Tharjini alone; we needed every single player in the team to do it."

Her team did just that, as centre Nurul Baizura, wing attacker Kimberly Lim and goal attacker Chen Huifen constantly tracked back to close down Sri Lanka's passing options.

And when the visitors did pass, they found the hosts' defensive trio of Chen, captain Lin Qingyi and goal defender Premila Hirubalan a real handful. The Sri Lankans seemed to have only one game plan - get the ball to Tharjini. But the quicker Singaporeans' mobility and constant harassing forced turnovers.

That the lanky Sri Lankan was restricted to just 45 attempts, down from her tournament average of 58 and scored only 41 goals, well short of the 53.4 she averaged before the final, spoke volumes of Singapore's efforts to keep her quiet.

"Our tactic against Sri Lanka was to intercept the ball early before it reached Tharjini as it's very hard to get the ball under the net... and the team worked well as a unit to defend early from the top," said Lin.

However, it could have been a different story had Singapore not recovered from a poor first quarter. Despite an almost capacity crowd of close to 3,000 rooting for the hosts, Singapore took a while to get going.

The hosts' initial nervousness was reflected in goal shooter Charmaine Soh's poor conversion rate of just 50 per cent (five goals from 10 shots) as they ended the period 8-12 down.

"I was so nervous and distracted by the constant thought of how important this game was that it affected my shots," said Soh, 24.

"But coach Ruth told me to just breathe and focus on nothing else but shooting like I always did, and it helped me after that."

The calming influence of Aitken got Soh back to the top of her game, as her conversion rate improved to over 92 per cent in the second quarter (12 shots out of 13 attempts) and the third (13 out of 14) to fire her team into the lead.

Singapore led 25-21 at half-time and 43-31 at the end of the third quarter before storming further ahead to win handsomely.

Said Sri Lanka captain Shashika Samarasinghe: "We played well in the first quarter but we just couldn't cope with Singapore's tactics after that.

"We knew they would be a strong opponent but we didn't deal with them properly and... the better team won in the end."

Minister for Community, Culture and Youth Lawrence Wong, who was among the partisan crowd at the final, praised the girls for doing Singapore proud.

"Our squad weren't the tallest or the biggest in size but our girls fought very hard and gave their all in a tough competition," he said.

The was some consolation for Sri Lanka as they, along with Singapore, qualified for next year's Netball World Cup.

Malaysia finished third in the tournament after beating Hong Kong 50-39.

Netball Singapore president Jessica Tan is hopeful that the young team's win will inspire future generations of players.

Said the MP for East Coast GRC: "I hope this result will motivate other young girls to... play netball seriously in the hope of (emulating) this squad in future."


This article was first published on Sep15, 2014.
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