Left: Sunshine Girls captain Simone Forbes. Right: England's Pamela Cookie

The National Indoor Sports Centre will be buzzing with excitement tomorrow when Jamaica's fourth-ranked Sunshine Girls, battle third-ranked England in the first match of their two-Test netball series starting at 7:30 p.m.

The Jamaicans are coming off a disastrous tour Down Under where they lost both Test series 3-0 and 2-0 to Australia and New Zealand, respectively. However, despite this, head coach Connie Francis said they are very confident of winning this series.

"The expectation is very high, because the blend seems to be working and I really do expect us to go out there and give more than our best; and I can't see why we can't win this series," said Francis in an interview with STAR Sports yesterday.

"We can say 'yes we are going to beat them', but we have to go out there and do it, because I know that they are no chickens and they are here to defeat us," said Francis. "I think that it may come down to the team that makes the least amount of mistakes that will win this series.

Francis added: "I am always very wary of our opponents, because I have played with them and I know that they are very confident in their strengths and in their beliefs; and even when we defeat them, they remain a very confident bunch," Francis said.

The Jamaican squad has been boosted with the inclusion of experienced trio captain Simone Forbes, Kasey Evering and Althea Byfield, who all missed the recent tour.

"The Down Under tour and this tour are different things in the sense that we have a lot of different and experienced players in our squad now," Francis said. "The good thing is that we are playing at home and we will have our home crowd behind us for the girls, and I don't see why we can't put together and win because they are very much confident."

team strength

Francis noted: "The strength of our team is the experience of our senior players, because we are a much better team now than the one that we had going up against Australia and New Zealand. In every third of the court, we are very strong."

Jamaica's full squad is: Kasey Evering, Simone Forbes, Althea Byfield, Romelda Aiken, Ann-kay Griffith, Paula Thompson, Nadine Bryan, Sasher-Gaye Henry, Georgia Gordon, Malysha Kelly, Kimone Tulloch and Jhanelle Fowler.

Meanwhile, England's coach Maggie Jackson is also very confident ahead of tomorrow's encounter against the Jamaicans.

"I think we can certainly beat the Jamaicans, but we have to play consistently," said Jackson. "We have to really raise the bar and not turn over the ball, because we know where they have their strengths and weaknesses."

"We beat them when they came over to England and we have also beaten them in crucial games, but I know it will be difficult for us to beat them at home," she said

The English team will rest their hopes in the hands of their experienced players, Pamela Cookie, co-captains Karen Atkinson and Sonia Mkoloma, along with Rachel Dunn.

In a warm-up game yesterday, England's netballers registered an easy 36-25 victory over Scotiabank 'A' at G C Foster College in St Catherine.