Team Bath Netball to take on Wales in first pre-season friendly

The new-look Team Bath Netball squad will get their first competitive run-out of pre-season this weekend when they take on the Welsh national squad preparing for the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games.

The match is taking place at Ebbw Vale Leisure Centre on Saturday (4pm) and will provide the Sitec-sponsored Blue and Gold with an early opportunity to test out new combinations in a game environment.

Australian defender Josie Janz-Dawson (top left) and England U21 goal-shooter Sophie Drakeford-Lewis (top right), a University of Bath student supported by a Whiteley Sports Scholarship, are in line to make their Team Bath debuts, while Abi Robson could make her first senior appearance after moving up from the U21s to the Superleague squad.

There will be some familiar faces amongst the opposition, with the Wales squad including former Team Bath Superleague players Kyra Jones and Amanda Varey plus U21 NPL attacker Sarah Llewellyn.

Team Bath Netball Head Coach Jess Thirlby said: “We have been back in pre-season training for a couple of months now, so it will be good to get some game time under our belts.

“Wales have some very talented players and will provide a good test of where we are at the moment. Our new combinations are looking promising in training and it will be an ideal early opportunity to look at them in match conditions.”

Tickets for the Wales match, priced £8 for adults and £6 for children, are on sale at ticketline.co.uk/welsh-netball.

Team Bath’s warm-up matches for the 2018 Superleague season, which starts in February, will once again include a tri-tournament at the University of Bath against Superleague opposition.

It is taking place in the Team Bath Arena on Saturday, January 6 and full details will be released soon.

Season tickets and individual Superleague match tickets have seen selling well ahead of the 2018 campaign. To view the fixture list in full and purchase tickets, visit www.teambath.com/netball/superleague.

Team Bath Netball are sponsored by Sitec and supported by partners Mogers Drewett and Investigo. Centurion Chartered Financial Planners are supporting the team’s performance analysis capabilities, Viper 10 are their Sportswear Supplier and Skins provide the team with compression wear. For more information, visit www.teambath.com/netball.