Rams to Face Armed Forces

The Manx Rams are stepping up preparations for the Europe Netball Open Challenge event by hosting a UK Armed Forces Team this coming weekend.

There is no charge to watch, although we are accepting donations to their charity of the year, Hospice

As well as the women’s and men’s teams playing their UKAF counterparts, the u21 and u17 teams will be playing N Ireland development sides.

The Europe Netball Open Challenge will run from Mat 1o to 15 at the House of Sport in Cardiff, where the Rams will compete in the higher ranked section of the tournament which will involve Republic of Ireland, UAE, Malta, and a friendly match against a Wales Development Squad.

The event will be played in two sections with Isle of Man playing in the higher ranked section, playing each team in their section once and then into play-off games.

The Ram’s first game of the tournament will be Malta at 1pm on Wednesday May 10. Following that they take on Wales Development later that day at 7pm, UAE on the Thursday 3pm, Republic of Ireland on the Friday 11am with play off games on Saturday and finals on Sunday.

All matches will be available to watch live on the Europe Netball YouTube channel.

A squad of 14 players have been selected for the event: Becca Cooke, Alice Cross, Rhian ‘After Hours’ Evans, Ashley Hall (Captain), Aalish Harris, Rachel Johnstone (Vice Captain), Zoe Kirkham, Cassidy Pizzey, Lydia Shaw, Niamh Skillicorn, Paige Skillicorn, Natalie Swales, Kenzie Pizzey and Sara Watterson.

The Rams are gratefully sponsored by Santander, here’s some nice words from Chris Corkill, sales director of the island branch: ‘Santander International is committed to supporting sporting opportunities for islanders. This sponsorship opportunity cements our commitment to people’s wellbeing and we are proud to be working alongside Isle of Man Netball to help grow the sport on the island.’