Another great day!

10th April
OK, the scores from yesterday: [Jamaica / Birmingham] 9-4, 18-10, 30-15, 41-17.  47% accuracy in scoring for Bham and 75% Jamaica]  Over and done with
Today 10th April, we woke to yet another beautiful sunny day in Kingston Town.. If you phone the Wyndham Hotel, they answer with 'Good Day, It's a beautiful day at the Wyndham, how can I help'  and they are right!!  After yet another big breakfast, with Alvin taking very good care of us all, we took our bus to the National Stadium.  The players were to receive coaching by the Jamaican National U16's Coaches, and Donna [supported by moi] was delivering a workshop to the Jamaican Junior Umpires. 
I had taken a video of the first u16's match and was showing it to the coaches [for analysis], Jill talked straight away about our defence and how we were not marking the pass anywhere near the opposing player.  The Jamaican Coaches taking the coaching session that morning said they had watched our game and noticed we were not defending the passes, so based it around that.  The players said they really enjoyed it and learnt loads, as did our coaches who learnt different ways of coaching a skill.  Meanwhile Donna was out in the heat with the young umpires, girls who hadn't made the U13's and U16's squad however were encouraged to stay in netball through this programme.  They had turned up in persil white skirts and tops and hair neat.  Their umpiring was excellent [regardless of their age], they spotted everything and spoke all the correct terminology, and always said 'yes miss' - very impressive.  Donna had concentrated her workshop on hand signals and confidence with voice, and they really benefitted from that.   As we were finishing, our players came over, and we all sat down together in the shade - Coaches, sisters, players, All in all a very good morning.

After resting/reaxing in the afternoon we took our bus to the National Stadium to play our second match against the Jamaican under 16's.  The Jamaica team delayed the match by 30 mins to allow the sun to go down, by 5.45pm the sun had disappeared under the clouds and there was a good cool breeze.  The score of 40 - 10 [to Jamaica] did not entirely represent the game, however the Jamaicans beat us convincingly - no doubt about that.  They are an exciting team to watch, with hard, powerful passes.  They fight every inch of the way, defend every ball and are totally foxused until the final whistle blows.