NewsInvitational Tournament crucial for Baby Pearls World Cup Prep

June 18, 2025by Mitieli Baleiwai

The Baby Pearls are gearing up for the upcoming Invitational Tournament that is scheduled from the 7th – 11th June at the Vodafone Arena in Suva.

The Invitational Tournament will be their second training match campaign this year leading up to the World Netball Youth Cup in Gibraltar in September.

The Baby Pearls previously toured to Australia back in April to play at the Netball Queensland U21 competition and head coach Simone Nalatu knows how important it is for the team to get more gametime.

“We really want to provide more gametime opportunity to our players to get that exposure and to learn because that’s what they’ll need to bring for final selection, and that’s the kind of players we’ll need when we go to the World Cup, players that are able to adapt to various styles regardless of who the opposition is,” Nalatu said.

Baby Pearls team manager Lusiana Rakavono said that the team has been training together and preparing well after returning from Australia.

“This is the fifth week of our preparation since our trip to Australia, preparation has been going on well, we had scrimmage with the Fiji Men’s team last week which gave us a good platform to test the players in terms of the intensity of the game,” Rakavono said.

“In terms of improvement, we’ve done our reflection, and we’ve set out the programs as well to suit whatever is needed in our areas of improvement and with that, we’ve been working with the S&C coaches and the 2 assistant coaches here on the ground.”

Rakavono emphasized the importance of this upcoming campaign in setting the right tone for the team in the lead up to the World Cup in September.

“We believe this platform is very crucial as we prepare for the girls leading up to the World Cup, we would like to execute what we have learned all along with girls.”

“This tournament will be very important to us in terms of exposure, they need a lot of gametime to that kind of high-performance environment, so it’ll give us a good opportunity for us to step up our game.”

Baby Pearls will be playing against IMB South Coast Blaze and New South Wales Fijians 21&U team.

FOLLOW US

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Don't miss our latest news and game reports.

    PRINCIPAL PARTNERS

    https://www.netballfiji.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/PAS_Landscape_Gradient_Tagline-1-320x75.png
    https://www.netballfiji.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/fnsc.png
    https://www.netballfiji.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/FinanceHub-Logo-Pink-Horizontal-640x165.png

    ASSOCIATE PARTNERS

    https://www.netballfiji.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/logo.jpg
    https://www.netballfiji.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/OIP-320x196.jpg

    Netball Fiji Ⓒ 2023. Developed by Elevation Technologies