South Coast Blaze to take on Australian-Fiji Quad Series
On October 9 the IMB South Coast Blaze will travel to Fiji to participate in the Australia-Fiji
Quad Series at Vodafone arena in Suva.
The competition will take place from 11-14 October and will consist of round robin games
where Blaze will play against the Fijian Pearls National Squad – playing as Fiji Black and Fiji
Blue – and Sunshine Coast Thunder in order to provide the Fijian Pearls with high level
match play and the opportunity for final team selection leading into the XVII Pacific Games.
The invitation was extended to South Coast Blaze by Netball Fiji supported by Netball Australia through the
PacificAus Sports (PAS) program, an opportunity that Head
Coach Marji Parr said will largely benefit the girls.
“Not only are the girls competing in a three day tournament, they’re going to be seeing parts
of the community,” she said.
“They’ll get the opportunity to work with some international players and coaching staff whilst
enjoying the Fijian environment and culture during the international week of Fiji Day.”
The team was selected to involve girls from both Blaze’s u23’s and Opens teams, an effort
which Marji said was intentional to show the club’s values and create a blended team
environment.
“We had a look at involving players from both teams so we could make sure that both
positionally and also composition wise, we had a spread of age groups and athletes,” she
said.
“These athletes were really intentional in terms of being inside our blaze family and the
athletes that have had really strong tenure within our club.”
This experience will offer Blaze players a unique development experience in an international
high performance sporting environment, an experience which Open’s player and Co-captain
of the tour group Abbey McFadden said she was really looking forward to.
“It’s such a wonderful opportunity that doesn’t come around every day, and to send Blaze
across to Fiji to participate in this tournament is really a once in a lifetime experience,” Abbey
said.
“We’ve got one more week until we fly off so there are some tough training sessions to come
but we’ve been working on our connections and I’m super excited to go away with the girls
and be immersed in the Fijian culture as well as be exposed to new types of play.”
According to Marji Parr, this unique experience will offer the girls a chance to develop their
netball skills against international players and learn from different styles of play as well as
teaching them about their own patterns and adaptability on the court.
As one of the senior players on the team, Abbey McFadden agreed that this experience will
teach the Blaze team a lot and will be an amazing experience for everyone involved.
“It’s something that I’ve never experienced before on an international level so it’s definitely
going to improve my game as well as the rest of the girls,” she said.
“It’s an opportunity for all of our players to develop and learn something new we can bring
back with us.”
Further information and game day updates will be updated on the South Coast Blaze social
media page as the tournament unfolds.
