ADELAIDE, Australia, CMC – Despite being thrashed 72-41 by Australia in the opening game of their three-match Test series, Sunshine Girls head coach Sasha Gaye-Henry says there were some positive takeaways.
The Sunshine Girls trailed 16-10 at the end of the first quarter and 34–22 at halftime. However, a woeful third-quarter performance saw them trail by 24 (54–30) heading into the final period, with the world number-one Australians eventually strolling to a comfortable victory.
Shanice Beckford led the way for Jamaica with 17 goals from 18 attempts, Simone Gordon 12 from 15, and Giselle Allison 12 from 18.
For the home side, Cara Coenen scored 25 of her 27 attempts, Kiera Austin made 21 of 23, and Sophie Garbin made 17 of 18.
The Caribbean side is missing several key players, including captain and star goal shooter Jhaniele Fowler-Nembhard and top defender Shamera Sterling-Humphrey.
However, Gaye-Henry maintained that the focus remains on growth and improvement as they prepare for the second Test in Perth on Sunday.
She said the lessons learned from that game could lead to a more substantial showing in the remaining two games.
“We are very hopeful going into game two because for us it is about building, and so we definitely want to make a big impact on our performance in our next game based on our efforts in game one,” Gaye-Henry said.
“We know that there are some areas that we really want to fix, and we are hoping that we will get it right for game two.”
Gaye-Henry said she had seen some improvements since the last series against England, which Jamaica lost 2-0.
“I think that we have definitely improved in some regions of our game against Australia compared to our last series in December against England.
“However, we didn’t start well against the Australians, and we made some poor errors, not Australia intercepting but our team giving away the ball easily,” the head coach pointed out.
“We set some targets, but we didn’t achieve some of them in terms of the scoreline, but we did see some nice, sharp passages of play. But again, consistency to limit the turnovers played a big part for us.”
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