| Fadhil Yunus |
HER Royal Highness Princess Fadzilah Lubabul Bolkiah and her teammates will hope to guide the Brunei Darussalam national netball team into a historic fifth place in the 11th Asian Netball Championships (ANC) in the rematch against Thailand at the OCBC Arena of the Singapore Sports Hub in Singapore on Sunday.
The Royal Bees secured second position in the plate grouping (Group ‘F’) after completing the second round with a 51-41 win over India yesterday.
After reacting to the loss against the Thais in the first game with a win against Japan, their second victory on the bounce assured at least a sixth place finish in the championship.
Brunei will hope to avenge their defeat against Thailand having also suffered the same fate when the pair met at the fifth and sixth place playoff in the previous edition two years ago in Thailand.
The Royal Bees finished seventh in the 2014 edition in Singapore and sixth in 2012 at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
After the setback against their regional rivals, Brunei hit the campaign trail once again in the win against Japan with both sides having already met on numerous occasions.
Brunei, embarking a new coaching leadership under the guidance of recently-appointed Jane Searle following the end of former coach’s Thilaka Jinadasa seven-year reign, enjoyed flashes of brilliance with quick passing causing chaos to the Japanese rear-guard.
Their goal shooter was in particularly in rich vein of form converting the attempts while on the other hand the Japanese matched them on the opposite of the court shifting the ball very well and finding a way past the Brunei’s defence.
Japan was unfortunate on the rebound as Brunei started to establish a good margin and the latter started play from the back as their goal defence lifted the ball into a team-mate on the farther side of the court.
Brunei attacked very well and moved the ball swiftly after the match was equally balanced in the early periods of the first quarter. They jumped into a 13-7 lead before Japan recovered some points to trail 10-15 with the end of the first quarter looming.
Brunei eventually came out 60-32 winners after dominating the second quarter and even enjoyed a 19-5 score in the third quarter as they comfortably closed out the match.
“The coach gave us a motivational talk and basically she asked us to do zoning, work on our defensive game, make good attacks and control the game,” goal shooter Nur Hafizah binti Haji Abdul Sidek told the Singapore media.