Isle of Man’s under-21 netball squad travelled to Dublin recently to take part in a match play competition against international and club opponents.

The competition was the idea of Swiss Netball and Netball Ireland kindly offered to host the event - the result was a fabulous weekend of high-quality and fiercely-contested matches.

The island team opened their account on Saturday morning with a convincing win against Republic of Ireland, who struggled to cope with the speed and accuracy of the Rams’ attack and the strength of the islanders’ defence.

Saturday afternoon provided a much tougher opponent in the Shipley Swifts, club team from Yorkshire who are trained by the ex-Republic of Ireland coach Pam Hoyle.

The Swifts proved to be an effective playing unit, and the match provided head Ram’s coach, Ashley Hall, with a valuable opportunity to try out a number of combinations throughout the court.

The Swifts came away with the win, but the adaptability of the Manx squad to offer more than one playing position was evident through the ease with which substitutions fitted into the on-court play.

The real test of the weekend came on Sunday morning against Switzerland.

Many of the Swiss squad were part of the team that triumphed in 2017, when as under-17s the Rams entered the Netball Europe arena, again in Dublin.

This time the Rams were determined to be the victors.

In what proved to be the best contest of the weekend, the Rams showed enormous resilience, repeatedly coming from behind to finally take and hold the lead in the fourth quarter and win by three.

Coach Hall said: ’This was an amazing performance.

’I couldn’t be prouder of every single member of the squad.

’The weekend has provided a great insight into the skill and mental toughness of this group as well as valuable international match-play.

’It was a great start to our preparation for the qualifying rounds of the Netball Youth World Cup next year.’

Isle of Man Netball would like to thank Netball Ireland for hosting the event and Hooded Ram for its support in helping the team attend.