We’re playing Bath at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow tonight and we can’t wait to have another home match. We’ve had five away games in a row so it’ll be great to get back in front of our own fans. Tonight’s match will be really tough though so we need to take it minute by minute and make sure that mentally, we maintain out intensity the entire time because we cannot ease off for a second. I’m really hoping that we can get a victory tonight because we’ve had two losses in a row and that’s not a great feeling. We’re really hungry for a win and we all feel that the home crowd will give us a boost tonight – the crowd of 4000 at our first home match was amazing and so we need to put on a good performance tonight for them.
We lost a tight match against Severn Stars on Monday and we were really disappointed with our performance. We really didn’t play nearly as well as we can. We need work on our concentration and make sure that we’re fully focused for the entire 60 minutes because even one lapse can be costly. We need to be mentally strong – we have very talented players but we have to be smarter in our plays to make sure we get our edge back.
I’ve been in Scotland for a few months now and I’m really loving it – well, everything except the weather, it’s pretty different to Jamaican weather, that’s for sure. I’ve been playing international netball for years now and I think that other than representing your country, one of the greatest things you can do in this sport is to experience netball overseas. So when the opportunity arose for me to move to Sirens, I jumped at it. In the UK, the level of competition every week is so tough whereas in Jamaica there isn’t the same strength in depth so here, you have to focus every single match and I really enjoy that challenge.
I love that a major goal of the Sirens is to create role models for young girls all across Scotland and hopefully I can be a part of that. What’s brilliant about sport is that it shows young girls that every shape and size of person can be involved. I’m 6ft 2in and so hopefully young girls see me and realise that even if you don’t look the same as everyone else, you can achieve whatever you want to achieve. Don’t ever feel restricted because of looks, height, gender or anything else. If you have a passion for something, you should go for it and if you believe in yourself and you work hard, you can achieve anything.
Nicole Aiken Pinnock is a Jamaican internationalist who captained her team to bronze at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. She has been playing international netball for over a decade and has accumulated 82 caps for her country.
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