Garland says Team Bath can go all the way

Team Bath need to make the most of their home advantage against Hertfordshire Mavericks on Thursday (29 March) to kick-start their campaign in the top tier of the Fiat Netball Superleague, says head coach Jess Garland.

The team return to action at home at the Team Bath Arena against Mavericks, after losing their second top tier game on Saturday when they went down 62-39 at Northern Thunder.

But Garland says she is convinced her young side can still go all the way and win the title.

“I still think we’re capable of going all the way,” she said.  “If we do that we’ll be a team that’s done it with the least wins under our belts, but the most amount of learning.

“We’re still in with a shout,” she added.  “If we can learn and learn quickly, there’s nothing to stop us going all the way. I genuinely believe that everyone in the top tier is beatable.”

And Team Bath can start that with a victory over a Mavericks side that have also lost both of their opening top tier fixtures to date.

“We were beating Mavericks for most of the game when we played them in phase one, and we had more attempts than them, but we ended up losing by two,” said Garland. “It was probably one of our best performances of the season, so we can go into the game with confidence.

“Both teams will be looking at this as a critical fixture to try to get into third place in the league. It’s not now or never, but it is really important for us. We need to use our home advantage to try to get us over the finishing line. “

Team Bath were ahead against Northern Thunder after 20 minutes of Saturday’s game, but ended up going down as Thunder ran away with the points.

“We proved we could start well on Saturday and that was a massive step forward for us,” said Garland.

The pre-match entertainment for Thursday’s game gets underway at 7.15pm.

For further details and ticket information, please see the Team Bath website at https://www.teambath.com/sport/netball/superleague/

Meanwhile, two members of Team Bath’s current Superleague squad have been named in the England under-21 training squad to prepare for next year’s World Youth Championships.

Sam Cook and Yasmin Parsons feature in the training squad along with Team Bath’s Rosie Allison, who featured in the team’s 2010 and 2011 Superleague campaigns and is overseas this year.

Jess Garland will be the team’s assistant coach and there will be further opportunities for the selection to the squad in the build-up to the championships, which take place in Glasgow.

For further information please contact the Team Bath press office at Matchtight Ltd on 01225 383518 or by email at press@matchtight.co.uk

You can also find out more about Team Bath at www.teambath.com , follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/teambath or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/teambath

The University of Bath is The Sunday Times University of the Year 2011/12.