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| Sunday, 15 February 2004 |
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Padma Gunawardena Junior National Netball Coach by LESLIE FERNANDO Padma Gunawardena, a former Sri Lanka netball star attached to the Department of Sports Development of the Ministry of Sports as a Programme Officer, is the new Junior National Netball Coach. Five applied for the post and the Interim Committee of the Netball Federation of Sri Lanka together with the Ministry of Sports representative interviewed them on February 3 and selected Padma Gunawardena as the Junior National Netball Coach. Padma's deputy is yet another former Sri Lanka player Deepthi Alwis of Sri Lanka Ports Authority. Right now, there is no senior National Netball Coach and the authorities are expected to fill the vacancy soon. Padma, with a vast experience of netball coaching here and abroad, said that her appointment is not a new job for her. "I have handled several netball national squads and I have proved my ability. My main task is first to train around 30 netballers who will be picked after the two-day trial held yesterday (Saturday 14) and continued today (Sunday). "To my knowledge, only two players from the last Asian Junior Netball Championship held in Malaysia last year are eligible to be in the pool as other players of the victorious Sri Lanka team are overage. So it will be a daunting task to start from scratch. But I will make every effort to build up a good team", said Padma. Height will be great advantage and I will be looking for players over 5' 6". The players will be selected for various positions and their skills will be taken into account. She said that she hopes to play lot of practice games until end of June. Netball is a team game and the team should 'click' together. So playing more matches will enable me to look at the condition of players and then offer advance training, Padma Gunawardena said. It will be a 'new look' team to battle it out at the Asian Junior Netball Championships to be staged in Sri Lanka in August this year. The best 12 players will go into a special residential coaching camp from the first week in July. "I am sure that the team spirit will be high with regular training, special lessons and seminars for the netballers," added Padma. Padma said that it will be a great advantage in having Deepthi Alwis as her deputy. Deepthi, also has lot of experience in netball coaching. She is the coach of the Sri Lanka Ports Authority netball team and Gampaha District schools coach. Padma has also represented the country at volleyball, basketball, gymnastics and in addition is a fine athlete. She is a former National gymnastic coach too. She was the Colombo District netball coach since 1994, National netball coach of Maldives 1995-1996. National netball coach of Indian netball team in 1997, National Junior Netball coach of India in 1998. She was the Junior Assistant coach of the Sri Lanka team at the Junior World Cup in England in 2002. Sri Lanka netball coach at the Commonwealth Games 2002, Padma was also the Netball Development Officer for South Asian countries. A member of coaching panel Netball Federation of Sri Lanka. Padma Gunawardena is also a 'A' grade netball umpire who has officiated in several local international matches. A holder of first class sports diploma (Sri Lanka), obtained Sports Diploma in the USSR. She has also passed the netball coaches advance coaching course and international coaches course. Padma has played netball at the highest level since 1972. She has played against visiting England and Australian teams. She represented Sri Lanka at the 6th World Netball Championships in 1983 in Singapore. She was a member of the Sri Lanka team which won the Asian Netball Championships in 1985 in Malaysia. She still continues to play netball for Colombo District team. She played in Australia in the World Masters Games in 2003. |
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