Works, Fisheries to fight for final berth

 THE Public Servants Netball competition defending champions Works will have to beat National Fisheries Authority in the preliminary final at the Rita Flynn Indoor courts tomorrow.

Works are favoured over their opponents in the sudden-death match where the winner meets PNG Olympic Committee, who earned the first grand final berth last weekend. 

Works have the advantage in former Pepe Kimberly Alex, Lama Lua, veteran Ati Rawali and Athalyia Kila, who is in the Under-21 national training squad, to out-match their opponents and secure the second grand final spot.

Underdogs National Fisheries Authority have with them veteran Gillian Ole and a strong team, who are also determined to upset their opponents.

Works beat NFA in the first round of the competition while in the second round NFA even the ledger.

Last week matches saw PNGOC thrash Works 30-24 to take the first grand final berth while Med Comm was eliminated from the competition after losing to NFA 19-23.

Works player/coach Ati Rawali said after their loss last week to PNGOC, they were determined to come back hard in their second shot and were aiming to defend their title in the grand final.

“The team that makes fewer errors will win and we’re aiming to  take care of the ball and defend hard,” Rawali said. 

“We’ve also worked out where we went wrong and worked on those areas at training.”

“It could be any anybody’s game but for us, we are the defending champions and we want to go back to the final and defend our title so we are looking forward to taking on NFA.”

Meanwhile, NFA captain Pune Himata said she was confident that her team had what it took to qualify for the grand final.

“We are looking at Gillian Ole and Stacey Haeremai to play big roles in the shooting area,” Himata said.

“We have been training hard on our game strategies to put up a good defence to get to the opposition goal and score.”

Himata said the team was geared up for the game and whether it was going to be a win or loss they would give their best and try to enjoy the occassion.