Adrian Frater, News Editor

WESTERN BUREAU:

THE 2007 St. James Hart & Sons Senior Netball League, which is being contested by nine teams, will begin today with a triple-header at the Montego Bay Boys Club Courts, starting at 5:30 p.m.

In the opening games of the league, which will be played in a round-robin format, newly promoted Pacers Juveniles will battle Sting in the curtainraiser. Pacers A will meet Flankers in the second game at 6:30 p.m. while in the 7:30 p.m. feature game, Cable & Wireless will meet Angels A.

"We are anticipating a closely contested competition as all nine teams are blessed with an abundanceof good talent," said Rita Spence, the president of the St. James Netball Association (StJNA).

"While one would normally expect a newly promoted team like Pacers Juveniles to struggle, they are expected to do well as they have national Under-16 player Danielle Ellis in their line-up," Spence said.

According to her, the competition, which will feature matches on Sundays and Wednesdays, was not arranged in zones as the StJNA was of the view that an extended competition, which would allow all the teams to meet each other, would better suit its need to have as much netball as possible being played in the parish.

Cash injection

"While we have to yet sign off on a sponsorship figure with our long-time sponsors Hart & Sons, we have gotten their usual commitment that they will be with us again this season," said Spence. "In addition, we have also gotten a generous $50,000 injection of cash from RBTT Bank."

While the various prize packages are yet to be worked out, Spence said she was quite confident there will be an improvement on the $25,000 Kings walked away with for emerging last year's champions. In addition, she is hoping that they will be able to put a reasonable incentive package in place to reward outstanding players.

"We were very impressed with the enthusiasm we saw at the recent season opening rally where the Blazer team was most impressive," said Spence. "Based on what we saw, we believe this will be a brilliant season."

The competing teams are: defending champions Kings, many-time champions Crystal United, Cable & Wireless, Angels A, Pacers A, Blazers A, Pacers Juvenile, Sting and Flankers.

Based on the competition's format, at the end of the preliminary round the four teams with the most points will advance to a semi-final phase where the top team will battle the fourth-placed team and second meet third to decide the finalists.