Australia to go all out to retain the title

By Hishan Welmilla in Australia

With just one days to go to start the Netball World Cup 2015, the defending world champions Australia are planning fire all their cylinders to retain the cup at home.

‘The Diamonds,’ one of the front runners in this year’s competition, are determined to make their mark in front of thousands of home crowd.

The Netball World Cup runs from 7-16 August. Australia has won nine or shared – under the discarded round-robin format.  A lot has and will be made of Australia’s storied history at the World Cup-10 of the previous 13 titles.

The scheduling of the Diamonds’ day three clash with New Zealand Silver Ferns has been lauded because it gives them a couple of games to warm up and not be “cold” when they take on the second best team in the world. 

Australian coach Lisa Alexander says she wants her Diamonds squad to have a ruthless mindset during the Netball World Cup – a tournament she and her players won’t be satisfied with unless they win it. 

Alexander’s squad knows they are in a position of power. They have won their past 19 games, to go with the 2011 and 2007 World Cups. The Silver Ferns have failed to beat Australia in their past nine outings. 

New Zealand, the four-time titleholders, is bringing a relatively inexperienced team to Sydney. Glasgow Commonwealth Games, they suffered a 58-40 thrashing defeat against the hosts in the gold medal game. The Diamonds meet Trinidad and Tobago on the opening day (9:05 pm local time – 4:35 p.m. Sri Lanka time) of the World Cup.

Asked if it would make sense to rest a few key players to save them from injury in those two games against Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados – a tactic employed by Australian cricket teams in previous World Cup campaigns – Alexander reinforced her hard-line stance that Australia are out to dominate minnow nations rather than coast through the preliminary round matches. 

With this in mind and bookies putting Australia as firm favourites for the tournament starting in Sydney on Friday, 7 August, Alexander said past performances would count for nothing.