T&T's Jere­sia "Ricey" McEachrane has signed a pro­fes­sion­al con­tract to play with the Lon­don Pulse for the up­com­ing 2023/2024 sea­son of the Vi­tal­i­ty Net­ball Su­per League in Eng­land.

Af­ter a se­ries of out­stand­ing per­for­mances at the Net­ball World Cup (NWC) held in Cape Town, South Africa in Ju­ly/Au­gust this year, the Bon Ac­cord born de­fend­er caught the at­ten­tion of the 2023 VNSL run­ner-up who of­fered her the op­por­tu­ni­ty to join their squad and the chance to im­prove her in­di­vid­ual game at the con­sis­tent­ly high lev­el of a pro­fes­sion­al league.

"To be giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be a part of Lon­don Pulse is like a dream come true” stat­ed an ex­cit­ed McEachrane , “ It is in­deed an ho­n­our and priv­i­lege to be se­lect­ed to play amongst some of the best net­ball play­ers in the world. I am in­deed grate­ful to God be­cause any­thing is pos­si­ble through Christ Je­sus. I am tru­ly en­thu­si­as­tic and grate­ful for this op­por­tu­ni­ty and I can't wait for the sea­son to be­gin!"

The Pulse, which had a record-break­ing and his­toric 2023 sea­son in which they made their first ever NSL fi­nal, re­cent­ly in­formed their fan base about sign­ing the T&T na­tion­al play­er on its web­site, post­ing: ‘The 27-year-old WD (wing de­fence) from Trinidad and To­ba­go showed the flair and nev­er-say-die at­ti­tude that the Ca­lyp­so Girls are known for around the world at this year’s NWC.’

While not leav­ing for Lon­don un­til Jan­u­ary next year, McEachrane has al­ready set per­son­al goals ahead of her de­but sea­son, say­ing: “When I get out there, I will have to ad­just to the cli­mate, the cul­ture, the dif­fer­ent style of coach­ing and to an en­tire team of dif­fer­ent styles of play to what I am ac­cus­tomed to.”

The 5' 11" de­fen­sive spe­cial­ist con­tin­ued: “Some of my goals are to be an ab­solute stu­dent of the game, soak up every bit of knowl­edge giv­en to me by my coach­es and team­mates and to stamp my name all over the hearts and minds of the coach­es, play­ers and fans at Lon­don Pulse. Un­til then, I will be putting in the work here at home in prepa­ra­tion to join the Lon­don Pulse fam­i­ly.”

The pro­fes­sion­al con­tract is just re­ward for McEachrane, who has put in years of hard work lead­ing to this lat­est suc­cess. She is cur­rent­ly a serv­ing mem­ber of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment and has been thriv­ing since help­ing the "Ca­lyp­so Girls" cop the sil­ver medal at the Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games in San Sal­vador, El Sal­vador in June/Ju­ly this year, af­ter help­ing T&T qual­i­fy for the NWC at the pre­ced­ing Amer­i­c­as Qual­i­fiers which were held in Kingston, Ja­maica.

“Ricey” as she is fond­ly called made her in­ter­na­tion­al de­but on the na­tion­al se­nior team at the Com­mon­wealth Games in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land in 2022, a year af­ter be­ing first named to the se­nior team.

The well-trav­elled McEachrane was al­so a mem­ber of a To­ba­go team which toured St Vin­cent and the Grenadines for a se­ries of match­es against that coun­try's se­nior na­tion­al net­ball team in 2020.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, the To­ba­go-born net­baller was a mem­ber of the na­tion­al Un­der-21 squad that suc­cess­ful­ly trav­elled to Grena­da for prac­tice match­es against that is­land’s se­nior team in 2016 and she al­so rep­re­sent­ed T&T na­tion­al U-21 net­ball team at the World Youth Cup Qual­i­fiers in St Maarten be­fore again se­lect­ed on the na­tion­al U-21 net­ball team, which jour­neyed to Eng­land for prac­tice match­es there, be­fore trav­el­ling on to Botswana for World Youth Cup 2017.

The gift­ed To­ba­go born de­fend­er is set to join an out­stand­ing list of net­ballers from T&T who have made it to the pro­fes­sion­al ranks, a fact that wasn’t lost on McEachrane who said: "To have fi­nal­ly joined the stel­lar list of pros is a re­al­ly great and ho­n­ourable feel­ing.”

Oth­er T&T play­ers who have played at the pro­fes­sion­al lev­el in­cludes: Saman­tha Wal­lace - cur­rent goal-shoot­er with the New South Wales Swifts in the Aus­tralian Sun­corp Su­per Net­ball League and for­mer­ly of Celtic Drag­on (in the Eng­lish League; Shaquan­da Greene-Noel – a stand­out de­fend­er and cap­tain of the "Ca­lyp­so Girls" at the world tour­na­ment; Kali­fa Mc­Collin - goal-at­tack spe­cial­ist who com­pet­ed in Eng­land, New Zealand and Aus­tralia; Daystar Swift – de­fend­er who played in New Zealand; and shoot­ers Afeisha Noel, Jameela Mc­Car­ty, and Anas­tas­cia Wil­son, who all had pre­vi­ous stints in Eng­land.

McEachrane's al­so paid trib­ute to sev­er­al coach­es who have in­flu­enced her ca­reer and suc­cess to date, in­clud­ing Sher­ry Ann Patrick and Suzie Scott at the ju­nior lev­el, while Can­dice Wal­lace, Syen­di Walsh Black­man, Christo­pher Clarke and Kem­ba Dun­can, a for­mer na­tion­al play­er and coach, all played their part dur­ing her days at sec­ondary school.

McEachrane made spe­cial men­tion of fel­low To­bag­on­ian Dun­can, as hav­ing the most im­pact dur­ing her time with the na­tion­al T&T U-21 set-up, along with Rhon­da John-Davis, whom she re­ferred to as "Two Leg­ends". The se­nior team duo of na­tion­al head coach Joel Young-Strong and as­sis­tant coach Car­lette Nurse, al­so came in for some praise.

This group was col­lec­tive­ly cred­it­ed for play­ing a ma­jor role in McEachrane reach­ing the high lev­el achieved and in sum­ming up the lessons learned from them, she said: "Net­ball is hard work, net­ball is ded­i­ca­tion, net­ball is sac­ri­fice, net­ball is con­stant prac­tice and most of all, net­ball is dis­ci­pline. Don’t ever wait for set train­ing ses­sions to train, it starts with you."