Summary

"Sydney Russell's netball stars on what's it like on the pitch?" By Iqra Butt- The Sydney Russell School

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  • On Monday the 20th of February a girls netball match was held in the Sydney Russell School against the Eastbury girls netball team and I got to interview the Sydney Russell girls on how it went and what it was like on the pitch. Of course I'm no netball expert but it definitely seemed like a tough battle against the two schools where in this instance Eastbury were deemed the winners! But of course you know what they say," it's not the winning that counts it's the taking part." That may be true but it was an unfortunate loss but is spurring the girls to train and work even harder so victory will be once more theirs. In the interview that proceeded I asked the girls some of the names of the star players and from the SRS girls they voted Agnes Orimaye as the star player while the opposing team voted for Khamila Hassan; funnily enough this was her first match so "it was a great encouragement to be nominated and acknowledged," Khamila said when asked about it. Furthermore, I wanted to get the point of view from a team member who had just experienced their first match so I interviewed Khamila Hassan who plays for the Sydney Russell School. The first question I asked her was how did it feel? As that is the main question I wanted an answer to; she talked about how she "had mixed feelings- there was the excitement mixed in with the nervousness to do well but my team were very supportive so I felt more confident." She also talked about how "the atmosphere was very competitive and the opposing team looked like they were trained well but the adrenaline helped the performance." When asked about the strengths of the other team the answer included, "good communication on the pitch and good sportsmanship which was nice to see." Lastly, closing off the interview I asked about her best moment from the match and she replied how she " felt very happy when I got awarded player of the match and everyone was cheering- it made me feel appreciated and a part of the team." After all that is what sports is about, being a part of a team and working as a unit to achieve the ultimate goal which is to shoot. I also had a chat with the other star player of the team Agnes Orimaye, who has been playing on the team so is more experienced. She told me how they had played against them before in previous years and when asked about how they would improve next time she answered with," for next time I think we need to improve our dodging from the opponents more often so we can receive the ball which we call, 'making a nice off the ball." Also for those who don't know much about netball, like me, Agnes explained how " there are seven players on each side during the match however more players are on the sides that can and may be swapped in depending on the circumstances." Moreover, I enquired about how she thought the atmosphere was like on match day and she elaborated to Khamila's response about how, " the atmosphere of the match wasn't tense, in fact it was quite friendly. Of course when we lost we weren't exactly happy about it but I think we lost respectfully in the sense that we weren't bitter about it; we all knew from that match that we needed to improve as a team as well as individually because we each have different strengths, weaknesses and positions." She also told me a little about the training that goes on to prepare and how they do "skill based training to reduce the amount of errors we make during the match so we can create more opportunities to score." Another team member that I spoke to was Zara- Lily Whittaker and she added her opinion on how " the goal keeper of the other team defended the goals very well and they also had a good wing attack while the rest of the team used a variety of shots; specifically their long shots were quite hard to compete with." She also commented on how the SRS team, " didn't let the pressure get to us and they didn't stress out or lose their cool. Also we communicated well and helped each other as a team." All in all I think the girls did the school proud and should take on the constructive criticism that they receive from their coaches and trainers to improve themselves even more and hopefully the next match I'll be writing about is the winning one!

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