Three Pacific teams will contest the World Youth Netball Championships, which begin in Glasgow later this week.
For Papua New Guinea it will be their first matches since the last event in the Cook Islands four years ago, while Samoa and Fiji's Under 21 teams played out a three match series in June.
Vinnie Wylie reports:
The Cook Islands were the top Pacific country four years ago, finishing sixth in front of their home supporters. They, along with Vanuatu, won't be in Scotland, meaning Fiji are the top-ranked Pacific team at the tournament, having finished ninth at the last Youth Championships in 2009. Head coach Una Rokoura has called on the experience of senior internationals Raijeli Daveua and Una Rauluni, while shooter Afa Rusivakula represented Fiji at the 2011 World Netball Championships in Singapore. The Baby Pearls are in the same pool as Australia, South Africa, Namibia and Israel. Rokoura says taking on the defending champions Australia, especially, will be an almighty test.
"UNA ROKOURA: I believe there's two or three players who are in the Diamonds and also 80 percent of the players played during the ANZ Cup Championship this year but it's going to be a good opportunity for the players to play the best players in netball. This is a stepping stone for most of these players and, like I mentioned, this is a stepping stone for them to the national squad, so having them a part of the World Youth Competition is going to be a really good experience for them."
The Samoa team has arrived in Glasgow with an air of confidence, having beaten their Fijian counterparts 2-1 in a series in June. Just one of their squad is locally based, with the others spread out across New Zealand and Australia. Samoa are in the same pool as hosts Scotland, Wales, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Head coach Trish Wilcox says, while they don't know a lot about their opposition, they're prepared for all possibilities.
TRISH WILCOX: I know that the UK countries have had good programmes in place for the last four years and they have influences in both countries from New Zealand coaches, so it will be interesting to see what sort of style of game they offer. Certainly prepared for an aerial game against Jamaica so the key is to be adaptable. Obviously in a world tournament you can be faced with varied styles of play. That's what we've tried to achieve is to be able to adapt to the different styles.
The final Pacific challenger is Papua New Guinea, who are looking to improve on their 16th place finish four years ago. Budget constraints mean the Baby Pepes have not played since that 2009 tournament and the President of PNG Netball, Julienne Leka-Maliaki, is expecting a tough examination in the pool phase, where they'll face Singapore, England, Barbados and the Republic of Ireland.
JULIENNE LEKA MALIAKI: All other countries we find in our pool are a main threat because you know we haven't played for four years and it will be exciting to see where we all stand. We finished 16th in 2009 so anything better than the 16th would be good enough, PNG Netball would be happy with those sort of results.
Scotland open the tournament in front of their home crowd on Friday with Fiji, Samoa and Papua New Guinea all in action on Saturday.
