Sport: World Cup spots up for grabs in Pacific Netball Series

Transcript

The Pacific Netball Series returns to Rarotonga this week with more games and more to play for.

Fiji are four time defending champions but insist there are plenty of teams ready to knock them off, especially with World Cup places on the line.

Vinnie Wylie reports.

Win or lose, Julie Hoornweg's second stint as Fiji Pearls coach will come to a close this weekend. She took the job in April on a short-term basis with one clear goal of qualifying Fiji for next year's World Cup in Sydney. A top two finish in the Pacific Series will achieve that but Hoornweg says nothing is guaranteed.

JULIE HOORNWEG: Papers over here are saying Samoa are the favourites and the papers back home in Fiji are saying Cook Islands are favourites so no one has picked us as the favourites to win. You can win four of the last four but that means nothing when you take the court tomorrow.  You've got to be prepared to do the hard work, make the sacrifices and put the performance out on court otherwise history doesn't put a skirt on and doesn't come out to play, you've got to do it yourself.

Papua New Guinea coach Annie Iamo guided her team to a second place finish last year in Apia and says she would be happy if they achieved the same result. The Pepes were thrashed by Fiji and Northern Ireland at last month's Tri Series in Suva but Iamo has recalled some experienced campaigners in defence and midcourt.

Former Fiji coach Una Rokoura, who led the Pearls to the previous four Pacific Series titles, has joined the PNG coaching staff and Annie Iamo is looking forward to her input.

UNA ROKOURA: We've asked her to come as a high performance coach to assist with the team and give advice when there's a need there. Because she used to coach the Fiji team and they've been doing well so definitely she's got some inside information that be willing to share with us.

Samoa coach Marcia Hardcastle admits her team has had a less than ideal build-up with no warm-up games and very little time together as a full team. But she still backs her players to qualify for the World Cup and says the return of some familiar faces will help.

MARCIA HARDCASTLE: Monica [Fuimaono] is one of them and Opheira Karatau is another one and Ruta [Schwalger]. We've had a couple of girls through pregnancy have not been available. We've got five from last year and the rest are all couple of young girls come back in and one that's probably first time playing for Samoa but apart from that we've got players that have previously played 21s or for the national team.

In contrast, the Cook Islands coach Trish Wilcox has named a very inexperienced line-up but is backing the home-town support to provide a welcome boost.

TRISH WILCOX: They're a very young group of girls so it's a building phase that Cook Islands netball is in at the moment and so these girls are passionate and bring that youthful enthusiasm with them. You know we're here on our home soil and it's quite evident the passion for sport that the country has, the support we have behind us, so we're really looking forward to playing in front of a home crowd.

Each team plays six matches across six days, with the top two finishers qualifying for the 2015 World Cup. Fiji open the tournament against the Cook Islands before Papua New Guinea take on Samoa.