Sri Lanka youth netball coach confident of whipping South Korea

9 June 2023 07:06 pm Views - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}} 3 Bookmark

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Sri Lanka’s youth netball head coach Amalka Gunathilake believes that her team can beat hosts South Korea in their first match of the 12th Asian Youth (Under 21) Netball Championships on June 11.

"Sri Lanka’s strongest opponents in the preliminary round is Singapore and I believe that we can beat the other teams in our group. My target is to win step by step and qualify for the final," said Amalka Gunathilake.

Gunathilake added that all the players in the Sri Lanka team are in good health and participated in several training sessions in the last two days.

This tournament, conducted by Asian Netball with the participation of 11 countries, is scheduled to be held in South Korea from June 10-17.

Sri Lanka will compete against Brunei on June 12, Singapore on June 13 and Chinese Taipei on June 14 in Group 'B' preliminary round of the tournament.

Sri Lanka has never lost to South Korea in the history of the Asian youth netball championship.

Sri Lanka last emerged champions in the Asian youth netball tournament in 2015.

In the last Asian tournament held in 2019, Sri Lanka finished in third place. (Susil Premalal)

Comments - 3

CONFIDENCE is more important than talent Friday, 09 June 2023 07:45 PM

This kind of captain Sri Lanka needs , a captain who speaks with confidence and a bit of “ arrogance “. Last time we had such a captain was Arujuna Ranatunga who brought us the World Cup in cricket. All other captains of Sri Lankan teams are timid personalities always trying to be diplomatic and specially pleasing to India. When Kumar Sangakara and Mahela Jeyawardana were captains of Sri Lankan teams , whenever Sri Lanka had any encounter with India , both would always bent over backwards to say good things about India and praise the Indian players .Then how could have the Sri Lankan cricket team got the courage and confidence to beat the Indian teams. That was why under their leadership, even though the teams were talented, they lost often to Indian cricket teams. This Sri Lankan netball captain dismissing the South Korean team as “ nothing “ is the way to generate confidence. We do not need Western coaches to be our team managers , we can manage our teams ourselves.

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Man Saturday, 10 June 2023 07:32 AM

Best wishes for the team and hopefully, the netball world cup will be brought to Sri Lanka like Arjuna, one day. Both, Kumar and Mahela were talented players than Arjuna and very diplomatic which is great. So, Kumar became the Chairman of MCC as a world class player and the first nonwhite which was a peculiar feat for his diplomacy and for that speech and not due to belligerence. In fact, Sri Lanka beat India in the T20 final against India, under Kumar, too.

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Tissa Fernando Saturday, 10 June 2023 05:09 PM

Only problem is that these players talk big before the game. Is it something in Sri Lankan DNA to talk big always.

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