TWO local sides - Youngsters and Sky Scrappers will be representing Seychelles at this year's Annual South African Netball Club Championship which will be held in Pretoria during the weekend of September 13 to 15.

The two teams which left the country on Monday September 9,  have been chosen for the competition following their very good performance during last year's league championship.

Youngsters captained by Rita Padayachy were crowned champions of last year's first division league in front of Skyscrapers before going on to win the cup competition.

According to Ms Dorothy Isidore, Seychelles Netball Association secretary, the local players have been training very hard prior to the competition and they are ready to face any opponent.

"We have been training hard and I feel that the players are more than ready," she said.

She added that such competition is very important as it will help raise the level of the local players who lack international experience.

"The fact that the first division matches are being being played under the new international law it has helped our players to improve their physical fitness," she concluded.

It is to be noted that since the start of the new season all first division matches are being played under international duration.

This means that instead of a game lasting 20 minutes (10 minutes each half), the duration of first division matches will be 60 minutes (15 minutes running time for each quarter).

This decision to play the game over four quarters was taken during the SNA's recent annual general meeting after national team players found it hard to play their Sri Lankan counterparts in friendly matches last year as part of activities organised to celebrate the country's National Day, which falls on June 18.

It is worth noting that the outing is the country's first in 30 years.