Kingston 2003

Champions: New Zealand (4th Title) Runners Up: Australia Dates: July 10-20, 2003 Venue: National Indoor Stadium (Indoors) Host City/country: Kingston, Jamaica Number of Teams: 24 Matches Played: 100 Number of Goals Scored: 9,243

Kingston welcomed the netball world for the second time to host the eleventh staging of the Netball World Cup. Kingston hosted the third ever staging back in 1971 and would be the destination for the first championship of the new millennium.

The vibrant crowd would create a special atmosphere during the matches recalls, TVNZ Commentator Brendan Telfer, “The crowds was amazing, they were singing and chanting and cheering all of the time. They were so noisy and so colourful and vibrant.”

Lights Out

Jamaica is a country that can experience power outages, more frequently than some players were used to. This happened during a Jamaica and Australia match, in which Australian coach Jill McIntosh had a plan on what to do.

“I think it was in the second quarter of our game against them (Jamaica) when the lights went out. We were told about this before we left Australia and we practiced what we would do. The team manager had a torch and everyone was to come to the torch and sit quietly in a group. And that’s what we did!”

Streak Breakers

The final once again came down to Australia and New Zealand. The pressure was on for the Silver Ferns as it had been 16 years since they had last defeated Australia at a World Cup.

Silver Ferns legend, Leigh Gibbs recalls the sixteen years of near misses that they had been through. “I had suffered, as many New Zealanders had, the disappointments of having lost the previous World Netball Championships in between times. Those one-goal losses that was just so devastating.”

The final was again close, but there would be no near misses for New Zealand this time as they would defeat their rival 49-47 to claim their fourth world title.

Final Standings

1st – New Zealand

2nd – Australia

3rd – Jamaica

4th – England

5th – South Africa

6th – Samoa

7th – Barbados

8th – Fiji

9th – USA

10th – Trinidad & Tobago

11th – Cook Islands

12th – Niue

13th – St Vincent & Grenadines

14th – Wales

15th – Scotland

16th – St Lucia

17th – Antigua & Barbuda

18th – Sri Lanka

19th – Northern Ireland

20th – Grenada

21st – Canada

22nd – Bermuda

23rd – Hong Kong

24th – Cayman Islands