Fijian Pearls head coach Kate Carpenter wants players who are able to combine well as a group.

This is as they prepare for the Netball World Cup in Sydney on August 7-16.

The extended 20-member squad had their final trials at the FMF Gymnasium yesterday.

“We are looking at players who are competent, play well in specific positions and combine with others well.

“We need to have athletes who will combine well as a group.”

The Kate Carpenter-coached side is in Pool D with Wales, Uganda and Zambia.

“We do not really know the depth of Zambia and Uganda but they really compete outside of Africa so we will make more assessment as we get closer to the World Cup. We still have six more weeks but more importantly we’ve the Pacific Games so we are preparing for the two events,” she said.

The Pearls are now focusing on their test match against the Silver Ferns on July 23 in Wellington.

“This test match against the Silver Ferns is a ranking game and we will also play a practice match with them. And when we go to the World Cup we have two practice matches before we start our campaign against Wales.

“One of these practice matches is against Jamaica,” she said.

Carpenter was impressed with Netball Fiji’s 2015 programme which enabled the girls to have more game time. One of the great things about our programme this year is we had a lot of matches. This is always Fiji’s downfall leading up to the World Cup in the previous years.

“Some of these girls have played 20 matches this year which is fantastic.”

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