Singapore finish third in netball Nations Cup 2022 with 52-36 win over Ireland

The Singapore national netball team beat Ireland 52-36 to achieve third place in the Nations Cup 2022. 

Held at the OCBC Arena from Dec 4 to 10, the Nations Cup 2022 featured six teams from five countries, including 2011 champions Fiji, two-time champions Singapore, Ireland, Malaysia, Botswana and Netball Singapore’s development squad known as the Singapore A team.

First held in 2006, the Nations Cup is the biggest annual netball tournament in Singapore and returned after a two-year hiatus. All six teams competed in a round-robin format. 

Ireland held a slim lead early on, but Singapore managed to keep up and hold the score at 11-11 after the first quarter. Singapore’s fierce defending proved to be the key as the team forced turnovers in the second quarter to edge ahead 23-20 at half time.

Singapore defender Sindhu Nair, who played from the second quarter onwards, noted their game against Ireland was one of the best performances that day as the team managed to put together everything they learnt over the past week.

She said: “In the past few games, we were working on several things including team coordination and passes. While there were some patches of errors, we always managed to pull through and got stronger as the game progressed.”

The tournament was won by Botswana, who went undefeated, including a 65-37 win over Fiji. The team also displayed a higher level of accuracy, landing 82 per cent of their shots as compared to Fiji’s 79 per cent.

Meanwhile, Malaysia avenged their opening day loss and defeated Singapore A 47-40 to end their Nations Cup campaign on a good note in the fifth placing match. Despite trailing 20-24 at half-time, Malaysia acted fast to equalise the scores and stayed ahead after they took the lead at 28-28.

Despite their loss against Malaysia, Singapore A centre Rachel Ling lauded her team’s effort and hard work. 

“We got a bit shaky, but what wasn’t lacking was the team spirit and hard work, and this was shown throughout the games,” she said.