Sri Lanka's U-21 netball team
pose for a photo during the
Youth Netball Championship
held in Brunei. Picture: BT
file
Sri Lanka's netball Janakie Goonesekere coach admitted that her sides were second best in their 59-50 defeat to Malaysia in the final of the 8th edition of the Asian Youth Netball Championship 2013.
"It was simple.
"Malaysia played better than us during the game.
"We tried our best in the game," said Goonesekere in an interview with The Brunei Times after the match at the Indoor Stadium of the Hassanal Bolkiah National Stadium in Berakas on Sunday.
Both teams were careful in their passes and movement earlier in the game and Sri Lanka were the first to find the basket.
However, Malaysia would find their way back into the game with Centre Pow Mei Foong played an important role leading with good passes to keep her team ahead.
Sri Lanka stuck to their own game plan of trying to slow down the game.
However, it did not work in their favour as Malaysia maintained their lead until the final whistle.
"We try to play with our own pace during the game, but the Malaysian team have their own style of play, and I think they are very strong this year.
"We will try to improve and train harder for future tournaments, added the coach, who is in her first year heading the Sri Lanka national under-21 squad.
The eight-day tournament which was hosted by the Brunei Darussalam Netball Association (BNA) featured teams from Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Nepal, Maldives, Thailand, India, Hong Kong and Sri Lanka.
The ten teams were divided into a group of five.
Group A consisted of Brunei, India, Hong Kong, Japan and Malaysia.
Meanwhile, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Nepal and Maldives were in a group B. Singapore defeated Hong Kong 57-27 to finish third in the tournament.
Hosts Brunei lost 53-34 to Thailand to finish sixth on Saturday, while India defeated Maldives 63-26 to finish seventh. Japan and Nepal finished ninth and tenth respectively.
Brunei also finished sixth in the previous edition of the Asian Netball Championship in Colombo, Sri Lanka last year.
Making their debut in the tournament, the national team proved their quality by racking up two wins and one draw in their six matches.
