S'pore hope not to be injury-hit

PREPARATIONS for the upcoming Mission Foods World Netball Championship are progressing as planned for the Singapore national squad.

There is only one bugbear: injuries.

"It seems that every time we are approaching a major tournament, we suffer some major injury problems. We're hopeful that, this time, it wouldn't happen again," said veteran player Jean Ng yesterday.

Indeed, one of the biggest concerns of coach Kate Carpenter is that, while pushing her players in the coming weeks before the July 3-11 tournament at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, she does not over-exert them and cause undue wear and tear among her charges.

This being so, she has only one injury headache before she submits her final squad of 12 by June 6, and that is of experienced goal-shooter Tan Hui Yan.

Tan is nursing a knee injury and, while she is back in training, Carpenter wants to gauge her ability to compete in the high-intensity atmosphere that is the World Championship before she decides on her participation.

While Tan races against time to prove her fitness, her team mates continued their preparations yesterday with a 43-39 win over Malaysia to conclude a two-match training series unbeaten, after thrashing the same opponents 51-29 last Saturday.

The series came after a training stint in Africa last month, when they sparred with World Championship group opponents South Africa and Botswana.

Said Ng: "We still need to be more clinical in our play execution, which means cutting down on our errors and trying to score on every possession.

"Still, the players are excited and eager to do their best, so we are looking forward to honing these areas."