Kali­fa Mc Collin, cap­tain of the tri­umphant Trinidad and To­ba­go "Ca­lyp­so Girls" net­ball team, is call­ing for more sup­port from the pow­ers that be for the team.

Mc Collin was speak­ing at the VIP Lounge of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port on Tues­day night (Oc­to­ber 27) fol­low­ing the na­tion­al women's team's re­turn from the eight-team Net­ball World Cup Syd­ney 2027 Amer­i­c­as Qual­i­fiers at the Sir Garfield Sobers Sports Com­plex, Bridgetown, St Michael, Bar­ba­dos, on Mon­day, where they played un­beat­en in sev­en match­es for a max­i­mum of 21 points to qual­i­fy for their ninth straight Net­ball World Cup, and 16th from the last 17 edi­tions.

Dur­ing the round-robin qual­i­fiers, the world 12th-ranked Ca­lyp­so Girls reg­is­tered wins over Grena­da (61-45), St Vin­cent and the Grenadines (73-41), the USA (43-39), Cana­da (61-32), St Lu­cia (62-35), the British Vir­gin Is­lands (106-17) and host Bar­ba­dos (60-51) to fol­low up on the re­cent gold medal tri­umph at the Ju­ly/Au­gust held Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games, which were held in San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, beat­ing Ja­maica in the fi­nal.

The oth­er team from the Amer­i­c­as Qual­i­fiers head­ing to Aus­tralia is run­ner-up St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, who end­ed with a 6-1 record and 18 points to se­cure their first World Cup tick­et since 1995, with their oth­er pre­vi­ous ap­pear­ance be­ing in 1979.

The duo joins hosts Aus­tralia; Com­mon­wealth Games gold medal­lists, New Zealand; and run­ner-up, Ja­maica, Eng­land, South Africa, Ugan­da, Ton­ga, Samoa, Malawi, Namib­ia, North­ern Ire­land, Scot­land, Sin­ga­pore, Hong Kong, and Chi­na as par­tic­i­pants at next year’s tour­na­ment.

The 31-year-old Mc Collin, who pre­vi­ous­ly played at the 2015 and 2019 Net­ball World Cups, said, "We would have just qual­i­fied for the World Cup, and I think that would have tak­en a lot from us.

"We do give a lot to the sport, and I think it's about time that recog­ni­tion is, I think, placed on the girls. I mean, we come to train­ing four days a week and we put a lot in­to it.

"And again, as I men­tioned, I think a lot needs to go in­to this pro­gramme. We have just come out of CAC Games, just fin­ished again with a gold medal from the World Cup qual­i­fiers. So, I mean, as much as we ex­pect re­sults, I think we need to sup­port our ath­letes mov­ing for­ward."

Look­ing ahead to next year's World Cup, Mc Collin, who has played pro­fes­sion­al­ly in Eng­land, Aus­tralia, New Zealand and Malaysia, not­ed that a lot more needs to be done if her team is to be com­pet­i­tive.

She said, "The World Cup is not an easy feat. It's a lot of hard work and ded­i­ca­tion.

"How­ev­er, sport has tran­si­tioned from just be­ing vol­un­tary to a pro­fes­sion­al space, so I think we need to re­spect our ath­letes in that space.'

"In ad­di­tion to that, I mean, our ath­letes al­so have out­side lives. We have ath­letes here that are go­ing to school, ath­letes here that are work­ing, ath­letes here that are moms.

"And I think, again, em­pha­sis needs to go in­to the holis­tic lives of our ath­letes. So, mov­ing for­ward, we need to do bet­ter for our girls and our women here, and re­mem­ber that we are do­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go proud, and we need that sup­port be­hind us.

"Whether that is in fund­ing, whether that is just show­ing up and say­ing hi and be­ing a part of the process with us, we do need that sup­port from Trinidad and To­ba­go.

"So again, we thank you, and we look for­ward to the next few months lead­ing up to our tour­na­ment, and we hope that you guys are sup­port­ing us on our jour­ney to the World Cup 2027."

Pres­i­dent of Net­ball T&T, Deb­bie-Ann Fran­cois, first con­grat­u­lat­ed the team and tech­ni­cal staff, say­ing, "You all have done us proud, you all have done Trinidad and To­ba­go proud, and it gives me great plea­sure to be here with you all, ex­pe­ri­enc­ing what you all ex­pe­ri­ence out there.

She added, "Your achieve­ment re­flects your hard work, dis­ci­pline, team­work, and de­ter­mi­na­tion. You have shown us what is pos­si­ble when tal­ent meets com­mit­ment, and you de­serve to be cel­e­brat­ed."

Fran­cois al­so ex­pressed her heart­felt ap­pre­ci­a­tion to the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT), and by ex­ten­sion, the Min­istry of Sport, for their sup­port and con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of the ath­letes and the sport.

She said, "Part­ner­ships of this na­ture are im­por­tant as we con­tin­ue to cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for our na­tion­al teams to ex­cel. As we pre­pare for Syd­ney 2027, let us not for­get that hard work and ded­i­ca­tion go a long way. Suc­cess does not hap­pen overnight.

"It re­quires com­mit­ment, sac­ri­fice, and a will­ing­ness to strive for ex­cel­lence. Equal­ly im­por­tant is team­work, not on­ly among the play­ers, but among the coach­es, man­age­ment, ad­min­is­tra­tors, stake­hold­ers, and sup­port­ers.

"When we work to­geth­er to­wards a com­mon goal, we cre­ate the foun­da­tion for last­ing suc­cess."

With an eye on Syd­ney 2027, Fran­cois told the mem­bers of the team, "The jour­ney is not over, and they must build on this achieve­ment."

Ne­fer­tari Ker­na­han, Di­rec­tor on the Board of Di­rec­tors for SporTT, in her brief ad­dress, not­ed that the team trav­elled to Bar­ba­dos with a mis­sion, and re­turned vic­to­ri­ous, hav­ing se­cured a qual­i­fi­ca­tion for Aus­tralia.

She added, "To­day (Tues­day), we are just not cel­e­brat­ing a vic­to­ry. We are cel­e­brat­ing your hard work, ded­i­ca­tion, dis­ci­pline, sac­ri­fice, team­work and de­ter­mi­na­tion.

"As a woman who has played sport and now has the priv­i­lege of serv­ing as Di­rec­tor of SporTT, I un­der­stand the im­por­tance of sup­port­ing, en­cour­ag­ing, and em­pow­er­ing women in sport. See­ing our na­tion­al team rep­re­sent our red, white, and black with such de­ter­mi­na­tion and ex­cel­lence fills me with tremen­dous pride.

Ker­na­han added, "To the play­ers, coach­es, man­age­ment, and every­one who con­tributed to this suc­cess, we ex­tend our heart­felt con­grat­u­la­tions. Your achieve­ment re­minds us that T&T may be a small na­tion, but we are blessed with ex­tra­or­di­nary tal­ent. When all our ath­letes are giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to shine, they can com­pete with the very best.

"At SporTT, we recog­nise the im­por­tance of sup­port­ing our na­tion­al ath­letes and cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for sport and ex­cel­lence. Your suc­cess is a pow­er­ful re­minder of why con­tin­ued in­vest­ment in sport is so im­por­tant. Ladies, en­joy this mo­ment.

"You have earned it. But re­mem­ber, this is on­ly the be­gin­ning. Aus­tralia awaits, and we look for­ward to see­ing you car­ry our na­tion­al flag with the same pride, pas­sion, and de­ter­mi­na­tion," said Ker­na­han.