National senior netball head coach Sasher-Gaye Henry has acknowledged her deep disappointment following the Sunshine Girls’ emphatic defeats to England Roses in the two-match Horizon Vitality Series, describing the performances as far below the team’s capabilities.
The Jamaicans were thoroughly outmatched in Sunday’s second encounter at London’s Copper Box Arena, suffering an 81-30 loss that underscored England’s dominance. After falling behind 38-16 at halftime, the Sunshine Girls were further overwhelmed, trailing 60-25 at the end of the third quarter before the final margin widened.
England had set the tone a day earlier, cruising to an 80-37 victory in the opening match to complete a commanding series sweep.
“Really a poor performance”
Henry did not attempt to soften her assessment of the series, admitting that the team’s overall display left much to be desired across both matches.
“It was really a poor performance from us in terms of our abilities,” Henry said. “It is a big loss and it is something that we are not pleased about because we felt that we should have shown much more improvements.”
She stressed that the responsibility for the results rests squarely with the entire group.
“So definitely, as a group, we have to take accountability and go back to really push hard to improve on our performance.”
Absences and experimentation expose gaps
The Sunshine Girls entered the series without seven senior players, leaving Henry to field a largely inexperienced squad and experiment with combinations against one of the world’s strongest teams.
While acknowledging the inherent difficulty of the task, Henry noted that the series clearly highlighted areas of concern.
“We have to look back at the areas that we were really lacking in. We have to also look at this rotation in a major tour,” she said.
She explained that the new line-ups were part of a deliberate effort to assess squad depth, even though the results were sobering.
“The rotations were different and they were new and we had to see the depth that we have and we recognised our shortfalls and definitely have to go back and fix them heading into our next series.”
Missed opportunities and declining efficiency
Henry pointed to execution as a decisive factor, particularly Jamaica’s inability to capitalize on England’s mistakes.
“I think that we didn’t capitalise today on how we would want to capitalise in terms of England’s errors,” she said.
She highlighted worrying trends in key performance areas.
“I think we had an increase in terms of our turnovers and we had a decrease in our shooting attempts on goal and I think it is something that we really need to work on, in terms of taking that ball into our shooters.”
Youthful squad gains valuable exposure
Despite the lopsided scorelines, Henry emphasized that the series served as a crucial learning experience for a young group still adjusting to the demands of international competition.
“It is a young team and I know that they have not had that experience and for that we just have to look at how we can build on each player heading into our next series,” she said.
She also noted marginal improvements from the first match to the second.
“However, there were a lot of positives that we can take from this game because we really started out much better than we did in the first match because we really held them up. But I think that we were not able to mentally and physically stay in the game.”
Structure and decision-making under the microscope
Looking ahead, Henry made it clear that tactical discipline and on-court decision-making must improve if the Sunshine Girls are to return to winning ways.
“I think we still tend to not play in a structure and England did that well,” she stressed. “I think persons did not know when to drive and so the inexperience of the players really showed, especially in our midcourt play, and we need to definitely improve on that.”
For Henry, the message is unequivocal: lessons have been learned, shortcomings exposed, and the work to rebuild confidence and cohesion must begin immediately.
