Once the Malta Olympic Committee gives its go ahead, the senior ladies national basketball team will participate in the next Commonwealth Games that will be held in Melbourne this March. These are considered as the largest international games second in size only to the Olympic Games. This qualification has become a reality through the excellent results obtained in July 2004 during the FIBA Promotion Cup that was held in Andorra.

Ten teams participated in the FIBA Promotion Cup. Malta was drawn in the toughest of the two groups together with Iceland, Azerbaijan and Scotland. The Malta team had two main targets. Get the best possible result in the Promotion Cup and at the same time top the five nations that formed part of the Commonwealth namely Scotland, Cyprus, Wales Gibraltar and Malta.

During the entire competition the Maltese national team lost only one game. However, due to the competition format the Maltese team was only able to obtain the third place and the bronze medal. With this result the national team managed to achieve both targets. It managed to obtain a creditable result and at the same time it managed to automatically qualify for the Commonwealth Games.

This was another first for the senior national team after the gold medal obtained in Malta during the Games for the Small States of Europe in 2003.

Following these two historical results the senior national female team underwent several changes due to various reasons. Some players decided to call it a day while others decided to retire from national team competitions.

This set the ball rolling for a transitional period in which several junior players were called up at the senior level. These junior players had already achieved another historical result in managing to win the bronze medal during the FISEC Games that were held in Malta in July 2004 against heavyweight countries like France, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Portugal. However experience at this level of competition takes time to be achieved and the current national team is on the right track.

During the GSSE 2005 in Andorra the transitional senior female team once again managed to achieve another positive result by winning another bronze medal. Even if this result was not hailed as a positive one by some sectors it is very important to understand that half of the team were at their first experience at senior international level.

The national team then continued with its preparations for the European qualifiers. In these games there were several problems like players unable to take days off from work to be able to travel with the team abroad. This was reflected in the bad result obtained in Belarus when only two of the players from the old guard managed to make the trip. In Malta with the entire complement at the disposal of the coaching tandem of Santino Coppa and Carlo Farrugia, the national team managed to obtain a very creditable result against Norway even managing to win the second half.

Basketball will feature for the first time as a sport discipline in the Commonwealth Games. The female competition will see eight teams that will be divided in two groups. Each group will play each other on a round robin basis.

The first two teams in each group will qualify for the semi-final phase. The other two teams in each group will also play for the fifth to eighth place. Malta has been grouped with New Zealand, Nigeria and Malaysia while the other group has Australia, India, England and Mozambique. Australia were the Athens 2004 finalists and silver medal winners and are the clear favourites for the gold medal. New Zealand also participated in the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.

Nigeria and India should make it to the semi-finals since they are very strong countries. Malta will play its cards in the game against Malaysia which will be the last group game. On paper the Malaysians should be slightly superior to the Maltese team but anything can happen.

Malta should thus play against England or Mozambique in the crossed group games for placing between the fifth and eighth place. The Maltese national team has already played against England in May 2003 here in Malta finishing on the losing end by a small 15 point margin. Mozambique should be on the same level as Malaysia. In this manner the top four teams will be fighting for the medals while the last four placed teams will be fighting for the best possible placing thus making the second phase of the competition more interesting.

Malta is the only country to have qualified for this competition. This, in itself, is already an enormous achievement. Let us hope that the female basketball team will make Malta proud once again.