Leighton Levy, Freelance Writer

Hamilton ... it's too costly - Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer

The national netball team begins the defence of their Caribbean title later this week in St Vincent and the Grenadines and in all likelihood it will be successful. The last time the national team did not hold that Caribbean title was in 1984 when it finished third.

Over the next 24 years, Jamaica have never been really challenged.

Still, for all the team's success at the regional level, Jamaica have never won it all at the international level. Since 1963, Jamaica finished as high as third but no lower than fifth at the World Netball Championships (WNC); never second, never a winner.

So, what exactly prevents this team that has boasted a host of talented netballers from taking home that top prize, the symbol of world netball supremacy?

Sonia Hamilton, chief executive officer of the Jamaica Netball Association (JNA), believes there are not that many reasons - but they are significant.

"I think there are a number of factors that we have to look at. The facilities that we have are woefully inadequate, particularly the courts we have to train on," says Hamilton. "I think we do very well with what we have but because all the other international teams play indoors, we have no indoor facilities here so that is one major, major aspect."

Wooden floors

Indoor facilities with wooden floors allow the players to better master their skills and cuts down on the number of injuries they are likely to suffer, she explains.

"The sprung flooring has that sort of cushioning that does not affect your joints as negatively as the concrete does. The second-most important thing is that when you fall, the injury level is much less. So there is the fear factor; and the injury level to the joints, especially to the ankles and the knees," she said.

Hamilton reveals that training at the National Indoor Sports Centre that sits less than 50 metres from her office at the National Arena is not on the cards.

"It's too costly. That's much too expensive for us to access for our training," she says, adding that it costs somewhere between J$60,000 and $80,000 per session to use that facility and that cost does not include lights or air conditioning.

"That is out of our reach. It's much, much too expensive for us to contemplate using it on a regular basis. We haven't the sponsorship to afford us this kind of access."

Another factor, Hamilton says, that is key to Jamaica's inability to leap to the top of the world rankings is that its players are not full-time netballers.

"These girls are working persons and so training becomes an after-work activity," she says. "How often you can get them is difficult to work on, so we try for a maximum of three or four sessions a week when we are close to a tournament. The other teams are training like daily, sometimes twice per day. Our netballers are not paid at all and so they have to sustain themselves by working. We are unable to afford that kind of payment, it almost then dictates that it is a part-time activity instead of a full-time activity."

The JNA CEO surmises that if the association could get access to an indoor court, pay its players so they would have more time to play as well as have access to a facility where girls coming in from rural Jamaica could overnight, these, among other things, could cause Jamaica's netball to rise to a level where becoming world champions would be so much closer to reality.

However, these things cost money, something that the JNA does not have much of. Unofficial estimates suggest that the organisation would need in excess of J$30 million a year to undertake the improvements needed.

It then becomes a matter of attracting sponsors to help offset costs. As such, the JNA has been undertaking a new marketing thrust which it hopes will help turn its financial status around and give the players the opportunity to compete on an equal footing with the best teams - New Zealand, Australia and England.

"They can be as good as the best in the world," Hamilton says of Jamaica's netballers. "And they can maintain that position once we have the component parts to make that possible."