NI netball captain: 'New coach has brought enthusiasm and fresh ideas'
Caroline O'Hanlon praises Dan Ryan's new approach ahead of World Cup
Last updated 26th Jun 2019
The captain of the Northern Ireland netball team has been paying tribute to their new head coach.
Skipper Caroline O'Hanlon spoke to Downtown Cool FM as the squad kick-started their final preparations for the netball World Cup last weekend.
The side suffered a narrow defeat to UK men's side The Knights.
New boss Dan Ryan is an experienced player and coach and led Manchester Thunder to the English Superleague final in 2016, after taking over from Tracey Neville at the helm.
He also has two years experience of coaching down under in his native Australia.
Dan invited the UK side to play against the Northern Ireland women in a bid to prepare them for the physical games they are sure to face in the upcoming competition.
Caroline said he has breathed new life into the squad:
"Dan's brought a great enthusiasm, he has loads of experience and he's a great technical coach.
"He has plenty of fresh ideas so it's great to have him on board.
"We're trying to build on his ideas and implement them, there's still plenty to do but we're happy with our progress so far."
Caroline, who is also a doctor and GAA player says the team have been putting in a lot of hard work in training.
The 34-year-old told us playing against men helps to prepare the squad on a different level:
"It's brilliant, a number of us have played against them before, they play regularly against the Superleague teams so we have played against them at other times but it's the first time with Northern Ireland.
"So it's great to get an opportunity to play against a team that are as big and physical as they are, great to test ourselves and it's our first real competitive test before the World Cup."
The Northern Ireland Warriors only lost by a narrow margin, 52-46 against the men.
Caroline said she was happy with some parts of the performance but there is still plenty of room for improvement:
"It's our first real competitive opportunity and there is plenty of positives to take but still plenty to work on.
"We're disappointed that we didn't get a win but it's more about working through our structures and our plays and getting the combinations working so plenty to work on."
Northern Ireland Warriors face world number one Australia in their opening game, followed by Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe in the World Cup pool games.
They recently climbed up the world rankings and currently sit eighth but Caroline is aiming higher:
"Our aspirations would be to try and break into the top six.
"We finished seventh and eight in the last big tournaments we competed in, we're sitting at eight in the world at the moment and we're aspiring to break into that top six.
"I think with the talent and the quality that we have on our squad we have the ability to do that but it's going to be a really tough challenge."