Carns excited to get work under way in her new role

The UK-based Sally Carns has just finished a busy weekend experiencing various aspects of Guernsey netball – including running a senior Island session, but also lending a hand at Future Panthers and a South U16 Division Two match.

Carrying a wealth of experience from working at up to England Netball level, she praised the attitude of the players who turned up to her senior session.

‘It was fabulous,’ she said.

‘The engagement from the girls is really, really good and we had a really good core of about 12 of them who really seemed to have bought into me coming on board and wanted to make a go of senior representative netball.

‘They worked really hard – a lot of sweaty bodies coming off court, but they were really good.’

Carns once made her name as an elite age-group player for her native Scotland.

But when she went to university, she took a 10-year break from all things netball.

It was only after she returned to Aberdeen after time away and needed a new hobby that she found social netball the perfect fit.

Her renewed passion for the sport eventually led her onto working for Netball Scotland as their original development manager, then stints with England Netball and Superleague franchise London Pulse, to name a few.

Carns currently heads up netball at Ipswich School, catering for children spanning Year 1-13, and says of her main role: ‘I absolutely love it.’

She also runs a coaching business called Netball Daft.

But she jumped at the opportunity to bring her expertise to the Guernsey Netball Association head coach role, which she saw advertised by a contact on Facebook.

She had never been to Guernsey before but had made several contacts through her work with the national governing body.

‘Firstly it was the vision that the board and the GNA have – really looking at how we can develop the performance aspects of netball on the island and really grow it,’ she said.

‘It’s coming from a place where they’ve had a lot of good, historical input and things, then Covid put paid to some of those plans, so it’s building from now and really starting from a good foundation.

‘The second part is it fits really well with what I’m doing on the mainland. I’m doing a lot of mentoring of coaches, and performance coaching, over there, so all of those skills are transferable to somewhere that needs it.’

Positive talks with the GNA’s Jeremy Frith and Amy Fallaize ensued and she will now be travelling over regularly on top of her existing roles in the UK.

Carns will be returning in a fortnight to provide more extensive coaching ahead of the comeback inter-insular event, which takes place on 4 and 5 March.

The focus then falls on reintroducing the senior players to regional-level competition, which they have been deprived of since the onset of Covid.

But that is just a sample of what she has to offer.

‘I’m really excited. It’s two-fold – I’m excited for the performance side of things, so actually getting on court and coaching the seniors, but I’m also excited for the development side of that, as I’ve seen the U16s, U19s and I saw some of the really young ones this morning at Amy’s [Future Panthers] session.

‘It’s how we can grow the pathway so that it benefits everybody, but also the top level.

‘Really excited to see the development in the next few months, but also the next few years, and how we build it as well.’