Samoa Netball

It’s been a busy 5 months of the year so far and much of this has been down to netball!!  In February and March we had trials for the Samoa National Squad team who will be playing in the Pacific Series in Fiji in June.  Lots of local girls made it into the squad this year and they have been training hard.  It is also great to have Marcia Hardcastle as the new National Squad coach for Samoa.  We have seen her over here on the island several times already working with the team.

In February we also ran an umpires workshop which was a whole day of theory and practical exercises going over the protocols and how to take the court etc.  A real booster for our new umpires, who are incidentally doing so well we definitely have some up and coming stars to contribute to umpiring during our next season.

In April, 4 of us were again lucky enough to be invited to the Oceania Umpires development Camp in NZ.  A great 4 days with umpires from the Cook Islands and Fiji also going over skills and receiving feedback on games we umpired.  2 of us then stayed on over Easter to umpire the NZ Mixed National Tournament that was held at the stadium in Glen Innes.  A perfect opportunity for more experience and mentoring.  I was very pleased to umpire the A Grade semi Final with one of NZ’s umpires from the Development Squad.

Immediately after returning to Samoa from the Camp, we had two secondary school teams from Christchurch in NZ visit to play games.  2 full weeks of indoor and outdoor games and 2 Saturday tournaments ensured our visitors had plenty of netball, around their sightseeing and beach visits.  It was great to have Mt Hutt and St Margarets schools be the first to travel to Samoa to play and excellent for local teams to have the experience of playing against these talented players.  The Samoan U19 squad was selected during these visits and will be playing in Australia this month.

Next we organised a University Tournament of Touch Rugby, Rugby 7’s, Netball and Volley ball games between the University of the South Pacific, National University of Samoa and Oceania University of Medicine.  NUS scooped the pool however I was very pleased with USPs performance in the final of the netball, winning at half time but not quite able to hang on to it!!

We have more Samoan Umpires currently sitting their NZ Regional and NZ Theory exams so hoping for good results there.

Our U21 Samoan team has also now been named, following trials with 60+ trialists.  Some up and coming talent there to nurture and we are pleased to have Trish Wilcox now coaching this squad in preparation for the U21 World Champs in Scotland in 2013.

And now I’m off to Adelaide to umpire during the Trans Tasman Secondary School tournament, 8 Teams from NZ, Australia, Samoa and Malaysia, and honoured to be invited back to Timaru for October for the NZ Secondary Schools tournament again. 

A big year of netball already gone and still plenty ahead! Manaia!!