Bowls: Silver Ferns take a flight into unknown

By Suzanne McFadden

The Jamaicans do not make life a holiday when touring netball nations drop by.

When the Silver Ferns fly into the Caribbean island tomorrow, they will not have a clue who they will be playing against.

The phone lines are always a little iffy in Jamaica; maybe the fax machines are not of the latest technology.

When she left at midnight last night, New Zealand coach Yvonne Willering had not has a reply to her request for a Jamaican team list.

It makes life interesting for the Silver Ferns in the next few days before the two-test series begins.

The Jamaican team could either be (A): stacked with their best American basketball scholars, or (B): without their best basketballers. There is quite a big difference between (A) and (B).

Willering, however, is not perturbed. After all, New Zealand invited themselves on this tour, and they are paying their own way all the way.

But cast your mind back to a year ago, when the world champion Australians were surprised from behind by the home Jamaican side. It was Australia's first, and so far only, loss in four years.

This week-long, in-out tour is labelled preparation for the test that really matters in the first half of the season - the Fisher and Paykel Cup versus Australia in four weeks.

But you would not want to come home with your tail between your legs after being stung by the Jamaicans and their raucous home crowd.

One thing Willering has been able to ascertain from her hosts is that the court surface in Kingston is a new wooden-sprung floor.

"That was my biggest concern. Last time they played on concrete and that's pretty rough," she said.

"I don't want anyone playing on concrete. If we have to, I will be using a lot of substitutions. We can't afford to have anyone injured."

It is, after all, New Zealand netball's biggest year yet. The Ferns will play against the other four teams in the world's top five before Christchurch hosts the world championships in September.

New Zealand's top defender, Bernice Mene, cannot play on concrete because of her degenerating knee, and it would be the worst reintroduction to netball for shooter Teresa Tairi, on the mend after her second full knee reconstruction.

Willering had midcourter Julie Seymour's troublesome Achilles tendon checked out by a doctor before she left to ensure she was taking no injured players on a whistlestop tour. Seymour passed the test.

New Zealand will play a Jamaican selection on Friday, before the first test on Saturday and the second on Monday.

Although it is a venture into the unknown, it is not a bad place to spend a week. As Waikato policewoman Jenny-May Coffin told her bosses: "If I'm not at work on Monday, I'll be in the Caribbean."

Pictured: Silver Fern captain Belinda Colling in the New Zealand team's new playing strip. PICTURE / FOTOPRESS