Jade Clarke Talks Up England's Chances

08 February 2010

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Jade Clarke began playing netball when she was at school, like most girls do, but, by the time that she was eighteen, she had a spot in the England squad.

Now a Commonwealth bronze medal later she is one of the most experienced members of the England squad as they take on Australia in an international series next month.

I caught up with her to talk about re-igniting an old rivalry, what England are going to bring to the series and her recent move to Northern Thunder.

- The international series against Australia is just around the corner these are exciting times for English netball.

Yeah definitely. I think over the last few years we have improved, New Zealand and Australia have both been ranked one and two for the last thirty years and in the last coupe of years we have started beating New Zealand and in our last competition against Australia, the World Netball Series, we beat them for the first time.

But that was a shortened version of the game so now we are coming up to a test series we really want to make it the first time that England beat Australia on home soil.

- How important is a series like this?

It’s really important because all the points go towards your world ranking so if we can win this test series we will move up the rankings and be in a better place when it comes to the Commonwealth Games and World Championships and be in a better position to get a medal.

- Well that leads me into my next question Australia are ranked at #1 with England in third so what needs to be done to bridge that gap?

We have all been working incredibly hard, we have all got our fitness programmes so we are all a lot fitter since the last time that we met them, we have been playing lots of matches together as a squad.

We think we are in form to beat them so now it’s just the belief to beat them because it’s definitely getting over a mental barrier when you have never beaten a team before but once it happens it just flows and we are just hoping that that happens this test series.

- So what is the feeling in the squad like at the moment going into the series?

We are quite relaxed, we are a fun squad always having a laugh and a joke and not taking ourselves to seriously; we always get a little bit quite and focused on match day but the jokers in the squad try to keep everyone upbeat and we are much better squad when we are relaxed and have no pressure.

- There’s a great rivalry with the Aussies so what are they like to play against?

Their strengths are they are very physical, very clever, well drilled, which is typical Aussies they were drilled and drilled and drilled when they were younger, but they are very skilful and clever players.

We are definitely the underdogs but I think that that can be a good thing because they could go into the test series a little bit arrogant thinking they might beat us and we have other ideas. Yeah we are really looking forward to it.

- You have had some very close and competitive matches in the past so what is England hoping to bring to the court this time around?

I think we have definitely, over the last few years, got a lot closer and had come very close matches so I think that that is going to stand us in very good stead so when we are in those pressure situations what we need to do now is finish off the game, I think that’s where our fitness will come in. I think we are ready we have a good mix of youth and experience.

- How did you get into the sport?

Well I had a bit of a pushy mum and she tried to get me into all different sports when I was younger to try and find one I was good at. Netball was one that I was good at, and I really enjoyed it as well, so that’s the one that I stuck with.

I did lots of athletics  and tennis but I always preferred the team sports, I have got a lot of admiration for those involved in individual sports but I just preferred the team environment and to have people to drag me along at the times.

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