By Morissa Lindsay
Former senior national netball coach Anna Shepherd is back in the mix as the new chair of the Barbados Netball Association’s (BNA) selection committee, after being away from the sport for some time.
This was confirmed by newly elected BNA President, Dr Carmeta Douglin, who said that Shepherd will lead a team of qualified coaches which include Alwyn Babb, Denise Alleyne, Julie Phillips, Cameron Greenidge, Inez Taylor and Clifford Roach.
“The selection committee is chaired by Anna Shepherd and that committee will only have seasoned coaches. We really felt that coaches are trained to select players and therefore we want to make sure that the seven-person committee had coaches chaired by a seasoned coach which is Anna Shepherd,” Douglin said.
However, when contacted, Shepherd said it was not official and therefore would rather not speak on it. “I don’t want to speak on it right now… I haven’t gotten anything official. I was asked but don’t know if I am going to really take it up.”
While Shepherd did not want to say much, BNA President Douglin explained, “We are all- inclusive, so we made sure that all of the past national coaches were invited to be part of that. The important aspect that I am looking at is the coaching team, we are going to have an excellent coaching team because first of all at the senior level we are going to be having a shooting, midcourt and defensive coach together and one of those will be the head coach.
Anna Shepherd is the new chair of the Barbados Netball Association selection. committee.
“Apart from that then we will be having our technical coach which was just advertised and we have some excellent applicants. We have about five applicants already who are well trained from either the United Kingdom or Australia. So, we will be selecting them shortly and that coaching director will be working with the other three coaches to really transform netball to bring out and enhance the skills. And even to go beyond that, showing other game plays that are used internationally.”
Shepherd, Babb, Alleyne, Phillips, Greenidge, Taylor and Roach are considered a cadre of quality coaches who can identify talent and elect the best possible team to represent Barbados.
While the BNA led by Douglin and her Vice-President Carl ‘Alf’ Padmore has put these individuals to select talent, Douglin stated that the players themselves must be committed to the task once chosen to represent their country.
Douglin who is in the seat as BNA President for the next four years strongly believes that Barbados’ netball team needs greater exposure on the international stage in order to improve its ranking and that will be the focus going forward.
“That is the next thing, the players have to be committed, fit, then the selectors would have an easy job or maybe a difficult job because then everybody would be so good. In order to excel in netball globally, you have to be playing international games. So, if we don’t get to play a lot of international games, we would be left behind because ranking is everything and in order for you to improve in your ranking you must be playing.
“We dropped two spots in our ranking from 12th to 14th and it had nothing to do with the level of play, it really had to do with during COVID we played no netball while other countries like [in] Africa and the others were playing amongst each other and their rankings were improving. So, once their ranking improved then we got pushed down. Hence, we want to play Uganda, we want to play Trinidad and Tobago and we want to take part in all the OECS tournaments, CAC Championships in June and then in the netball World Cup.
“All of that will improve our ranking and improve our skills because if you play difficult netball against skilled persons, then you keep improving on your game and that calls for money. It is a lot of work and requires a lot of money and we really need to get corporate Barbados on board because we can’t do it without money,” Douglin said.
There are a total of 13 newly installed BNA committees: Selection – chaired by Anna Shepherd; Communications – chaired by Carl ‘Alf’ Padmore and Public Relations Officer Tonisha Rock- Yaw; Development – chaired by Carmeta Douglin; Community Netball – chaired by Marion Johnson- Hurley; Tournaments – chaired by Cameron Greenidge; Youth – chaired by Monique James; Finance and Sponsorship – chaired by Juanita Cordle; Disciplinary and legal affairs – chaired by Joy-ann Catwell; Netball tourism – chaired by Mona Alleyne; Special events committee – chaired by Tara Gittens; Infrastructure – chaired by Fred Clarke; Security and safety – Shane Chase; Human resource and talent identification – Alicia Jemmott.
morissalindsay@barbadostoday.bb
