Pepes rise in world ranking

 THE Papua New Guinea Pepes have moved up to 17th position inthe World Netball Rankings which was recently released by the International Netball Federation (INF).

The last 18 months have been a good period for the Pacific MMI sponsored Pepes as they have moved from the 20th position at the beginning of 2013 – moving up 3 rankings in a short time is a great improvement for PNG Netball.  

From a regional perspective, PNG is in third 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.  

The current train-on squad comprises of youth and experience and we will be building on this plus a few special talents that we hope to identify between July  and November this year.