Robert Bailey, Freelance Writer

Australia's Under-21 netball team will launch their tour-match schedule today against a Select Jamaica team at G.C. Foster College, Spanish Town, at 6p.m.

The Jamaican team is made up of seven national under-21 representatives and a number of club players.

The Aussies, who are here for a three-Test series against their Jamaican counterparts, arrived in the island on Thursday night and Simone McKinnis, coach of the Australian Institute of Sports (AIS) team, said they will be taking the matches very seriously.

Serious series

"We are going to take this series extremely seriously because we want to compete and compete very well, because we definitely want to win this series," said McKinnis.

"We are going out there to play typical Australian style of netball, which is speed and moving the ball quickly through the middle," McKinnis reasoned.

"We have some great speed in the centre of the court and some height in the defence and the goal circle," she pointed out.

McKinnis told The Gleaner that despite the lack of experience, her girls will be going all out to defeat the Jamaicans.

Good opportunity

McKinnis added that her players will also be hoping to gain a lot during their visit as Jamaica have one of the top teams in netball and are going to be one of the teams to beat at the World Championships. This, she said was a good opportunity for Australia to compete against them.

"This is a great challenge for the girls because they have not played against the Jamaican style before and it is going be new for them. It's also a different style than what we are used to back home," she said.

Both countries will be using the series to prepare for the World Championships, which will be held in the Cook Island in July next year.

The first Test match will be played on Wednesday, with the second game scheduled two days later and the final game to be played on Sunday.