NIGEL SI­MON

Se­nior Re­porter

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

Aus­tralian-based T&T se­nior women's net­baller, Saman­tha Wal­lace has con­firmed that due to in­jury, she will be forced to miss the up­com­ing Vi­taly Net­ball World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa.

The 16-na­tion com­pe­ti­tion will jump off from Ju­ly 28 to Au­gust 6, at the Cape Town In­ter­na­tion­al Con­ven­tion Cen­tre.

Back on March 28, 2022, 29-year-old Wal­lace suf­fered a sea­son-end­ing torn an­te­ri­or cru­ci­ate lig­a­ment (ACL) in­jury, when her New South Wales Swifts be­gan de­fence of their 2021 ti­tle in Round One of the Sun­corp Aus­tralian Su­per Net­ball tour­na­ment.

With just over 12 min­utes to go at the Ken Rose­wall Are­na in Syd­ney in the re­match of the 2021 grand fi­nale against Gi­ants Net­ball, which the Swifts won for their sec­ond ti­tle in three years, the To­co-born T&T sharp­shoot­er—who al­so is a na­tion­al bas­ket­baller—slipped and col­lapsed to the court clutch­ing her right knee and scream­ing in pain.

Med­ical staff from both teams tend­ed to her for sev­er­al min­utes be­fore she was helped off the court.

Wal­lace, who still led all scor­ers with 33 points from 37 at­tempts in the 55-57 loss for the Swifts, was tak­en to hos­pi­tal im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the game. Scans were con­duct­ed which con­firmed the torn an­te­ri­or cru­ci­ate lig­a­ment (ACL) in­jury in her right knee. The club then dis­closed that Wal­lace will play no fur­ther part in the sea­son.

Due to the sever­i­ty of the in­jury, Wal­lace had to a wait a few weeks for the swelling to sub­side, af­ter which she un­der­went surgery. She has been out of ac­tion since.

And dur­ing her ab­sence, the Swifts fell heart­break­ing­ly short of the fi­nals race in 2022, af­ter win­ning the pre­mier­ship the year pri­or. They end­ed with a record of 6-8 and 24 points in the fifth spot, the same as Colling­wood Mag­pies, but were be­hind on points-won to points-loss ra­tio. This, de­spite Wag­ga Wag­ga teenag­er So­phie Fawns step­ping in to fill the void cre­at­ed by Wal­lace to sup­port Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­al He­len Hous­by, who scored 453 goals, in­clud­ing a league high of 56 su­per shots.

At the na­tion­al team lev­el, Wal­lace's ab­sence—along with that of fel­low shoot­er Kali­fa Mc Collin, due to per­son­al rea­sons—was felt keen­ly as the 'Ca­lyp­so Girls' fin­ished 11th of 12 teams at the Com­mon­wealth Games Net­ball com­pe­ti­tion in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land, with a 63-31 beat­ing of Bar­ba­dos in their play­off clash.

Ear­li­er on in their round-robin Group B se­ries in Birm­ing­ham, T&T—joint cham­pi­ons in 1979 with New Zealand and Aus­tralia—end­ed with a 0-5 record af­ter loss­es to Eng­land (22-74), Ugan­da (28-62), New Zealand (24-80), Malawi (30-70), and North­ern Ire­land (32-41).

The T&T 'Ca­lyp­so Girls' who were run­ners-up in 1987 and third in 1983, in the ab­sence of both play­ers at the Net­ball World Cup Qual­i­fiers Amer­i­c­as (fea­tur­ing less­er qual­i­ty op­po­si­tion than in Birm­ing­ham), fared much bet­ter last Oc­to­ber in Kingston, Ja­maica when they qual­i­fied as run­ners-up to the Ja­maica 'Reg­gae Girlz' with a 7-1 win-loss record for 14 points on the nine-team ta­ble.

This, af­ter T&T de­feat­ed An­tigua & Bar­bu­da (55-24), St Lu­cia (63-25), St Vin­cent and The Grenadines (49-42), Grena­da (66-42), Cay­man Is­lands (60-21), USA (43-27) and Bar­ba­dos (50-40), be­fore go­ing un­der 47-60 to Ja­maica in their fi­nal match.

The Ja­maicans fin­ished with a per­fect 8-0 record and en­tered the Amer­i­c­as qual­i­fiers, de­spite hav­ing al­ready qual­i­fied to the World Cup based on their world-rank­ing, which meant T&T and third placed Bar­ba­dos (6-2) se­cured the two spots to South Africa.

At the up­com­ing World Cup (Ju­ly 28 to Au­gust 6), T&T will com­pete in Pool D with Ugan­da, Sin­ga­pore and New Zealand. Mean­while, Bar­ba­dos will com­pete with Scot­land, Eng­land, and Malawi; and Ja­maica faces South Africa, Wales and Sri Lan­ka in Pool C. Aus­tralia is in Pool A with Ton­ga, Fi­ji, and Zim­bab­we.

How­ev­er, with the first ever Net­ball World Cup to be held in Africa just over two months away, the re­cent­ly en­gaged Wal­lace and her club con­firmed on Tues­day that she will miss the rest of the on­go­ing 2023 Sun­corp Net­ball League sea­son due to the slow pace of her re­cov­ery from in­jury, thus rul­ing her out of the up­com­ing World Cup.

A state­ment on the Swifts Twit­ter page “NSW Swifts”, read:

“We are sad to an­nounce that three-time club "Most Valu­able Play­er" Sam Wal­lace will not take the court this sea­son as she con­tin­ues her re­cov­ery from a knee re­con­struc­tion…”

Head coach Briony Ak­le stat­ed: “Both Sam and the med­ical team have been ab­solute­ly out­stand­ing in their ded­i­ca­tion and ap­proach. The de­lay is just an un­for­tu­nate by-prod­uct of a very se­vere knee in­jury. Sam­my still has so much to give the game and we would nev­er put that at risk for a quick sug­ar-hit."

Ak­le said they are “dev­as­tat­ed for Sam­my, but the most im­por­tant thing is that she is ab­solute­ly 100% per­cent right be­fore hit­ting the court”.

She added: "What peo­ple need to re­mem­ber is that while Sam was in­jured in Round 1 last year, she was not able to have surgery for six weeks un­til the swelling went down—the in­jury was that bad... De­spite that, we were very con­fi­dent that she would be able to play this year. She is Sam Wal­lace, and you will al­ways try every­thing to have her in your team. Sam and the Swifts med­ical team have been work­ing hard on her re­cov­ery. She was aim­ing for a re­turn to ac­tion at the mid-way point of the 2023 Sun­corp Su­per Net­ball sea­son. How­ev­er, com­pli­ca­tions in the re­hab process have ruled this out.”

Wal­lace, on hear­ing the news, said:

"It’s hard know­ing that I won’t get the chance to play with the girls this year, and al­so miss out on the World Cup in South Africa.”

The 29-year-old said “I was so ex­cit­ed about get­ting back on the court quick­er, and when my knee didn’t feel right again, it was very hard to take. But every­one at the Swifts has been so good to me… our physio, the doc­tors, the girls, coach­es, staff, and fans. The club has giv­en me the best med­ical care, and I feel very lucky and grate­ful be­cause not every­one in the re­al world can get ac­cess to this.”

“It’s like one step for­ward, two steps back,” Wal­lace ad­mit­ted, “but at least I know it is go­ing in the right di­rec­tion. I have done so much re­cov­ery work that some more won’t break me be­cause I know I have more to give at the high­est lev­el.”

The T&T star­let added: "I am feel­ing fine ac­tu­al­ly, but at the same time gut­ted and dis­ap­point­ed ob­vi­ous­ly, but at the end of the day my men­tal health comes first, and it should be every­one's num­ber one pri­or­i­ty.”

"My re­hab is go­ing good, and I am in a hap­pi­er place than I was when I got the in­jury, and all in all the slowed re­cov­ery is for the best. This knee is just not do­ing what it is sup­posed to be do­ing and it's no point in me rush­ing to try and come­back this sea­son, and even play­ing at the World Cup if it's not at its best, and I al­ways want to per­form at my best for club and coun­try," Wal­lace said. "So, I'm just tak­ing it one step at a time and what is to be will be, but at present, I'm men­tal­ly hap­py and that's all that mat­ters at present."

While the Swifts have man­aged to cope much bet­ter this sea­son in her ab­sence with a 6-1-2 record for the sec­ond spot with 26 points, four be­hind lead­ers Ade­laide Thun­ders (7-1-1)—thanks to Hous­by and her re­place­ment, Ja­maican Romel­da Aiken-George—Wal­lace has tran­si­tioned to coach­ing, and she looks at her fu­ture af­ter her play­ing ca­reer is over.

She is cur­rent­ly serv­ing as an as­sis­tant coach for the North Shore Unit­ed Club, which com­petes in a league two lev­els be­low the Sun­corp Net­ball League, some­thing she said she is find­ing a pas­sion to­wards.

In ad­di­tion, Wal­lace not­ed that while she is now in­volved with the Swifts in league com­pe­ti­tion, she is very ac­tive in the gym try­ing to get stronger, while on game days she still sits on the team bench for their home match­es.

"It's frus­trat­ing watch­ing net­ball, but I have come to terms with the sit­u­a­tion, and can't com­pare my in­jury with any­one else.”

Wal­lace al­so had some words of en­cour­age­ment for her Ca­lyp­so Girls team­mates, say­ing:

"I just want them to go out there and do their best. Re­gard­less of what­ev­er sit­u­a­tion we may be in when it comes to mon­ey for the sport. Play with pride and re­mem­ber all the sac­ri­fices they are mak­ing."

Since join­ing the Swifts sev­en years ago from Eng­lish club Hert­ford­shire Mav­er­icks in 2016, Wal­lace has be­come a fan favourite and has fea­tured in 76 match­es for the Aus­tralian club.

Wal­lace is a for­mer win­ner of the “Play­er of the Year” in the Eng­lish Vi­tal­i­ty Net­ball Su­per League in 2016 and was the club Swifts “MVP” in 2018 and 2019 (the lat­ter a ti­tle-win­ning cam­paign). She scored 585 goals at a suc­cess rate of 93 per cent in 2021 and is among a few play­ers in the league to have sur­passed the 2,000 goals mile­stone, along with Aus­tralian Caitlin Bas­sett and Ja­maican Jhaniele Fowler. She now has a six-year tal­ly 2,726 goals from 2,988 at­tempts.