7 Jun 2011

Sport: Fiji set sights on retaining Pacific netball title

10:44 am on 7 June 2011

World champs preparations step up a notch when Fiji face Samoa in the opening match of the Pacific Cup Netball series on Tuesday evening.

At fifth in the world the Fijians are the highest ranked team at the tournament, which also includes the Cook Islands and hosts Papua New Guinea.

Co-coach Una Rokoura says they're desperate to defend their title but also want to test their game plan ahead of next month's world champs in Singapore, where they're drawn alongside New Zealand, Wales and Trinidad & Tobago.

"We know that probably Samoa will be coming in with their World Cup squad and also the Cook Islands and PNG coming out hard to try and prove a point. But our main goal is that we want to get in there and play a good game, try and retain our title, and then hopefully whatever we wanted to achieve at the world championships - whatever we want to work on at the world champs - we'll try and do all that in the Pacific Series and then come back and analyse if we did do what we wanted to do or not."

Following the opening clash, hosts PNG will take on the Cook Islands.