Defending champions Singapore are not about to surrender the netball gold medal they won at the last edition of the biennial games they hosted in 2015 and have named a strong team of youth and experience for next month’s Sea Games.
In the 2015 Sea Games final Singapore won a thriller with a narrow 46-43 margin over their neighbours from across the causeway. And Singapore are well aware that it was the partisan home fans who made the difference between the gold and the silver medal in 2015.
Singapore are also wary that the crowd factor could well play another role at the 29th Sea Games to be held in Kuala Lumpur when the netball competition is held from Aug 14-20 at the Juara Stadium in Bukit Kiara.
What makes the battle for the netball gold all the more interesting is that Singapore are the reigning Sea Games champions while Malaysia are the defending Asian champions after beating Sri Lanka in the final.
The Singapore media reported that the Singapore netball team to KL was finalised from the initial squad of 24 which was picked after the completion of the local netball league. From the 24 only 14 were selected for a playing tour of Belfast, Northern Ireland – which was a four-nation quadrangular between Northern Ireland, ranked No 11 in the world, Barbados (No 12), Ireland (No 24) and Singapore.
Singapore finished third in Belfast.
The Singapore team to Kuala Lumpur includes five players from the 2015 gold medal team.
Coach Yeo Mee Hong was quoted as saying “The team has the right mindset” for the KL Sea Games. – BY RIZAL ABDULLAH
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THE SINGAPORE NETBALL TEAM
Vanessa Lee (Captain), Nurul Baizura (co-vice captain, Chairmaine Soh (co-vice captain), Chen Lili, Jocelyn Ng, Kimberly Lim, Melody Teo, Nur Aqilah Andin, Parveen Nair, Shina Teo, Toh Kai Wei, Zhang Ailin
