New Faces As Wales Name Final Squad For Netball Europe

Wales have named their 12 player squad for the forthcoming Netball Europe competition, to be held in Cardiff on 23-25 April, and it includes several new faces.

16-year-old goal shooter Chelsea Lewis has been selected as one of the attacking options. The Glamorgan Valleys player represented the Wales Under-17s team in the recent Netball Europe event in Belfast, at which the Welsh girls finished second after giving England a fright in a narrow two-goal defeat.

Both Steph Murphy (18; defence) and Sophie Morgan (17; mid-court) have made the squad after impressive performances for Wales at last month’s Netball Europe Under-19 competition, at which Wales also finished second.  Both players hail from North Wales with Steph playing for Northern Thunder’s NTL team and Sophie the Junior Dragons this season.

18-year-old Emma Thomas shot 100% in the Celtic Dragons’ final match of the Co-Operative Superleague season on Saturday, a 36-35 home win over Loughborough Lightning, to leave her ahead of the whole pack at the top of the shooting statistics for the season. She is the other uncapped player in the squad.

The average age of the squad is just 21½, making it one of the youngest which Wales has ever fielded in a Netball Europe event, but there is significant experience provided by Sara Hale, who could win her 50th cap if she plays all four matches, and by Jo Davies, Suzy Drane, Amanda Trounce and Becky James.

High Performance Coach Melissa Hyndman said:

“I am really excited about this group. It is a very young squad but there is an enormous amount of ability there and they have shown real commitment and desire in training. Emma has done well for the Dragons this season and I am very confident that the likes of Chelsea, Steph and Sophie will add a lot to the squad. It is a good mix.

There were a couple of players injured and therefore not available for selection, and inevitably we’ve had to omit several players who have performed well for the Celtic Dragons. It’s always difficult to make the final selection but we are beginning to see real competition for places now, which has to be healthy for Welsh Netball as we try to improve our world ranking. We have World Championship qualifiers in June and the Six Nations tournament in Singapore in December, so there is a lot for everyone to aim for.

With such a young squad the future looks good but although we have a long term plan being put into place we also want to be winning matches now and we will be approaching Netball Europe in Cardiff with that aim in mind.”

For further information please contact Melissa Hyndman or Mike Fatkin at Welsh Netball on 0845 045 4302, or by email [email protected]  or [email protected]

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Netball Europe is an annual tournament between the leading countries in Europe. This year’s competition takes place at the Welsh Institute of Sport (now known as the Sport Wales National Centre), Cardiff, on Friday 23rd, Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th April. Sri Lanka have been invited to play against each of the four home nations in matches which will count for world ranking points, though the results in matches against the Sri Lankans will not count towards the overall Netball Europe title.

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