The Pacific MMI PEPES has moved up to 17th position of the World Netball Rankings which was recently released by the International Netball Federation.
The last 18 months have been a good period for the Pepes as they have moved from the 20th position at the beginning of 2013 and moving up 3 rankings in a short time is a great improvement for PNG Netball. At a regional perspective, PNG is in 3rd spot 17th ranking, with Samoa on 2nd spot 13th ranking and Fiji leading at 7th position in world ranking. Cook Islands have dropped to 23rd position on the ranking after losing two matches to PNG at the recent Pacific Netball Series.
President of PNG Netball Julianne Leka Maliaki said she was happy with this outcome, although she believed the Team could have been in the top 15 should the team had won a few key games over the last 10 months.
However one thing for sure is that the team has come away with experiences and more game knowledge particularly with the new players and the team is aware of the expectations for 2015 and the need to rise up to the occasion. A lot of effort has been put into the last 18 months to restore credibility to our international performance and ranking and our coaching team headed by Annie Iamo and Mona-lisa Leka and international high performance experts have worked hard to achieve these results during this period.
PNG Netball is currently revisiting its High Performance Program and the train-on squad is expected to commence training in the month of July in preparations for its international commitments later this year.
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