ONE thing you can never accuse Claire Nelson of is sleeping on the job. The CEO of Netball Scotland is the mastermind behind UWS Sirens, Scotland’s first-ever professional netball team, and having overseen the team finishing in sixth position in their debut season of the UK-wide Vitality Netball Superleague earlier this year, she is keen to push on from that in 2018.
Earlier this week, at the home of their new title sponsor UWS, Sirens unveiled their new roster of players, a 15-strong squad which includes a number of new signings including England internationalist Sara Bayman and Jamaican national team players Shantal Slater and Vanessa Walker to compliment the backbone of the team which is made up of Scots.
And with the season starting in February, the new signings have plenty of time to bed in and gel with the players who return from the 2017 squad..
While sixth place was a creditable position in which to finish last season, Nelson admits to being disappointed having believed UWS Sirens had the potential to climb further up the Superleague table and she is not shy in expressing her ambitions for the coming season.
“We learnt so much as a result of last year and I’m really excited about the squad we’ve pulled together this year,” she said. “Top four is my target – I want to get to the Grand Final but every other team do too so we know it will be a tough challenge. We’ve got a great squad, a fantastic coaching set-up and a good lead-in to the season so I have high expectations that the team is going to do really well over the coming year.”
A new head coach in the shape of Tanya Dearns, a former New Zealand internationalist, as well as the signings of players such as Bayman illustrate how keen Nelson is to ensure UWS Sirens are not content with merely maintaining their standing, rather they are in the Superleague with the intention of making life very uncomfortable for their rivals.
“It shows that we have the pull to attract some of the best players not only in the league but in the sport as a whole,” Nelson said. “I want the players to bring all their experience and use it to help shape UWS Sirens so that we can become not only the best franchise in the league but also in the world one day.”
One of the most impressive things about UWS Sirens last season was the team’s desire to work with children and use netball as a tool to engage with communities. The team’s ‘Sirens For Success’ programme, which is led by captain Claire Brownie , is designed to address barriers to participation for girls and despite Nelson’s desire to achieve success in the Superleague with UWS Sirens, she has not lost sight of how important the team can be in changing young girls lives for the better.
“This programme, for me, is one of the most important things we do,” she said. “There has been pockets of progress when it comes to women’s sport but it’s still not enough so driving messaging through UWS Sirens is so important for us. The results so far have been amazing and we know we’re really making a difference so we need to continue to do this because it’s so powerful.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here