The newly appointed National senior Netball head coach Thilaka Jinadasa began her duties and unveiled her plans to focus on forthcoming Netball World Cup to be held from July 28 to August 6 in Cape Town, South Africa.
The head coach Thilaka Jinadasa and junior head coach Amalka Gunatilleka and senior officials of the Netball Federation of Sri Lanka met Chairman of the National Sports council Arjuna Ranatunga yesterday to discuss their plans and progress of the game.
Thilaka Jinadasa has an intention to build up her senior team and to get players a high standard of physical and mental preparations.
The senior National pool of more than 35 players came to Sports Medical Unit yesterday while head coach Thilaka Jinadasa and Assistant coach P.D.N Prasadi were there with the players. Dr Daminda Athtanayake was busy with the medical tests for the Netball players.
This medical test was very vital for the players before their training while most of the senior players who were in the last Asian cup champion team were present with new comers of the pool yesterday. The national team playing in Sri Lanka and playing games here for the World Cup will not be enough. To be competitive we must play more matches against teams from Europe and Africa,” said Jinadasa who was coach when Sri Lanka emerged Asian champions in 2009 and 20.She has idea to get good match exposure before world cup.
My target is to get a ranking between 10 and 14 in the tournament. It has to be an achievable goal we have to target. If we go beyond that it’s going to be a bonus,” said Jinadasa who was a Olympian hurdler as well as member of the Asia cup winning Netball team and now renowned Netball coach already having served Sri Lanka as well as Brunei. She is presently working at Gateway International school and was a member of the National Selection committee but when she was appointed as the head coach of Senior Netball team she resigned from the National selection committee.
Sri Lanka have been drawn in group C with Jamaica, South Africa and Wales, countries ranked four, five and nine respectively.
I think we have to do systematically our training program for the world cup and I have made my plans and focused on several areas. However we have selections on February 9 th at Sugathadasa Indoor stadium and want to select 18 players from this pool. I think the Senior Netball National championship which is scheduled to be held from 11- 13 at Sports Ministry grounds at Torrington and the Sugathadasa Indoor stadium is going to be a good opportunity to observe players skills and we want to commence our National pool training after the Nationals said Thilaka Jinadasa.who is very keen about the players fitness and she is handling strength and conditioning training with her vast experience .The motivation and phychology part is vital for the players preparation she said.
Meanwhile former Netball selection Committee Chairman Dhamayanthi Jayathilleka,Thisarangani Kodituwakku and Chamika Jayasekara will have do the selection for both senior and junior pools February 9 while Sports Ministry is expected to appoint new Selectors after placing advertisement and select suitable person's from the especial panel as same as cricket selectors.
The "Daily News" learns that former National Netball player Vajira Pushpakumari was appointed manager of the Sri Lanka junior Netball team for the next Asian Junior Netball championship which will be held in South Korea in June .The junior Netball team as well as senior Netball team preparation in same period is a huge challenge for the present Netball administration headed by President Victoria Lakshmi.
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