The Cook Islands Netball Association can concentrate on preparing local netballers for the Pacific Mini Games with some of their financial burdens alleviated by a $5000 donation from Pa Marie Ariki.
Pa Ariki gifted a cheque of $5000 to Oceania Netball Association president and CINA representative Tina Browne yesterday to help with the netball girls.
“This is an excellent contribution from Pa Ariki who has always been a supporter of netball for many years,” says Browne.
“This amount of money will go a long way for our netball team preparing for the Pacific Mini Games.”
The donation is appreciated greatly by the local netball association who have had a bumper netball calendar this year with some impressive results achieved in the sport.
The ranking team lifted the Cook Islands world ranking from 10th to 7th and qualifying the country to take part in the 2011 Commonwealth Games in India.
The under 21 netball team did the nation proud recently when they shot from 12th place to 6th after the World Youth Netball Championship.
“The objective now is to win gold,” says Browne.
“That would be the icing on the cake for the end of the netball calendar.”
Pa Ariki has a lot of confident in the Pacific Mini Games netball team and would love to see the girls on the top podium receiving a gold medal at the games later this month.
“We have a very strong team,” says Pa Ariki.
She reflected on her recent invitation to listen to Kiwi five time Olympian Barbara Kendall’s presentation saying that in sports age doesn’t matter.
“You know she (Kendall) has been an Olympian for over 20 years,” says Pa Ariki.
“And I hear people moaning about some of our athletes and saying they are too old. It’s not the age that counts.”
The Pacific Mini Games netball tournament will be held over five days (Tuesday September 22 to Saturday September 26) at the Telecom Sports Arena.
The competition will be between six teams from the Cooks, Fiji, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Tokelau and Tonga.

- Matariki Wilson, Cook Islands News