The Namibian netball national team, better known as the Desert Jewels, departed for Brisbane, Australia, on Wednesday to participate in the Pacific Netball Series.
Dominic Le Roux, a member of the Namibia Sport Commission board, addressed the team during their send-off, emphasizing that they will represent national pride and have the support of the entire nation.
The Desert Jewels are set to face high-ranking teams from Fiji, Samoa, Singapore, and Tonga in the Pacific Series in Australia.
These countries hold world rankings of 8, 15, 17, and 24 respectively, while Namibia is ranked 20th. A good performance by Namibia will see them surpass them by improving their global rankings.
Le Roux, encouraged the players with a few motivational words.
''To our Desert Jewels, you have trained hard, you are well prepared, and you are in full support of the nation behind you, so go out there and play with your heart and determination. Remember that you are not just representing yourselves; you are carrying the pride of the nation and the dreams of other Namibians as well, complete with honor and show respect to others, and most importantly, enjoy and have fun ''she said
Head Coach Julien Meyer acknowledged the stiff competition ahead, noting that they will be up against teams with World Cup experience.
''It will be stiff competition the last time we played Ireland style was in 2019 in Singapore, this is the style of Netball that the players have not played before the reason why we are going there is to make sure we are prepared for that style as well, the first World Cup event that we intend to qualify for is in Brisbane, so the location is in terms of preparations for the World Cup in Brisbane the exposure to the Ireland nation the rest of those teams that will be played in terms of Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, and Singapore have already played in the World cup so we would like to benchmark ourselves against them and get these players exposure and experience against what we plan to come up said coach julien
The 21 squad Desert Jewels will open the Pacific netball Series with Samoa on the 10th of June
The tournament will run from June 10th to 15th of this month.