Netball: Scottish Thistles star hopes home crowd can help seal World Cup spot

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Kelly Boyle hopes a loud home crowd can back Scottish Thistles to next year’s netball World Cup.Thistles take on Republic of Ireland, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Gibraltar and Wales over a five-day round-robin competition at Glasgow’s Emirates Arena from today until October 6, with only the top two progressing to the finals in Cape Town next summer.And the 26-year-old from Coatbridge it’s a great opportunity to progress as individuals and as a team.Boyle said: “It’s great to have the competition at the Emirates and it does make such a difference – even if the crowd might not realise it.“It does; when you see it when it’s going type for type and goal for goal the crowd really pushes you on.“We’re lucky for it to be a home crowd, because our fans are absolutely incredible and they really do support us all the way, so we’re really looking forward to them being that eighth player during the competition.“We’ll do the hard graft, but they can push us over the line.”Boyle says the thought of qualifying can be off-putting during the tournament and Thistles will take it game by game, hoping that results in them progressing anyway.She said: “It will be interesting.

Obviously we would love to go, but for us it’s just staying focused and not getting too ahead of the game.“During this competition as a squad we’ll look to take it game by game, stick to our processes that we’ve been working on over the year.“Since then the group has come together from the Commonwealth Games [where they finished ninth], so while we want to qualify, we need to remain focused.“If we stick to our structure and our processes, hopefully the result takes care of itself.“As a collective, we don’t want to get too ahead and caught up in the end result.“We’ve