Samoa ready to take next step

The Samoan national women?s team the "Nafanua" will enter next week's 2012 Pepsi ICC East Asia-Pacific Women's Championship in Vanuatu with a team that on paper, appears significantly stronger than the side that finished third behind PNG and Japan in 2010.

Samoa has number of players with representative and first class experience in New Zealand included in the squad, and with this strength at her disposal team Coach Maia Lewis has expectations of a victory in Port Vila.

"Our three goals for the tournament are firstly to win, secondly to continue to develop and grow the local Samoan talent, and finally to play positive attractive cricket," said Lewis.

The squad is made up of a combination of Samoan and Auckland based players with both groups of women impressing during the lead up to this event.

"An Auckland based squad has been picked through a series of trials and has been training together for the last few of months," said Lewis. "They played a practice game against an Auckland Maori team and won convincingly."

Samoan Co-Captain and Apia based Perelini Muitalo has been working closely with the locally based women and is pleased with their progress.

"I am confident that we are ready to face this challenge in Vanuatu," said Muitalo. "After training with the selected squad for months, we have become close and I believe we have the experience and skill to bring the trophy home to Samoa."

Lewis also believes that a positive result for her girls in Vanuatu could do wonders for the promotion of cricket to Samoan women in both Samoa and New Zealand.

"It could be huge for Samoa hopefully," she said. "The chance to travel to Vanuatu and show the opportunities that cricket can provide is very exciting. The Nafanua players can become real role models to the young girls in Samoa."

"It provides a huge incentive for talented Samoan female players to play club cricket and also strengthen the relationship to kirikiti players as well."

Samoa will have to hit the ground running on day one of the tournament as they face both Japan and PNG, the two sides Lewis believes will be their biggest threats for the title.