Singapore defeat hosts Hong Kong to retain Asian netball crown

SINGAPORE – Mere minutes after the Singapore Vandas retained their Asian Netball Championships crown on Aug 15 with a 57-33 win over hosts Hong Kong in the final, attention had already shifted to a bigger target.

The top two finishers also qualified for the 2027 Netball World Cup in Sydney, a feat that Singapore achieved with their 82-54 semi-final win over Sri Lanka on Aug 14.

Speaking to The Straits Times in a phone call before the medal presentation, Singapore coach Tara Steel congratulated her charges on the triumph and added: “For us, we are all about raising our standard and looking at how we can compete on the world stage.

“Recently, we had the (Spirit) Series over in Australia, where we played teams like Fiji and beat them. We’ve got some other teams coming to our Nations Cup later this season too. So for us, it’s about competition on the world stage and continuing to play our style of netball and show that Singapore netball can compete and challenge the top 10 in the world.”

The Australian, who was first appointed head coach and technical director in March 2025 before signing a two-year extension that will see her continue in those roles until Dec 31, 2028, added: “We want to keep retaining our number one in Asia status. We’ve got the SEA Games next year, we want to try and win the gold there, and then we have the World Cup too.

“So we will be trying to compete and raise our standard... and continue to put Singapore on the world stage.”

Besides the Aug 25-Sept 5 Netball World Cup in Sydney next year, Singapore will be looking to gain revenge on Causeway rivals Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur at the 2027 SEA Games, which is scheduled for Sept 18 to 29.

At the 2025 Games in Bangkok, they lost 52-49 to the Malaysians in the final.

Meanwhile, Singapore’s highest placing at the quadrennial world championship remains eighth, a result achieved during the 1967 tournament when eight teams competed. At the last tournament in 2023, held in Cape Town, South Africa, Singapore finished 15th out of 16 teams.

Captain Toh Kai Wei is already looking forward to her third World Cup appearance, having played in the 2023 and 2019 editions.

The 28-year-old, who was stellar in her goal-attack role during the Asian championships, said: “We will definitely want to (break) into the top 12. We will prepare ourselves well for the competition. We will go in with a strong mindset like we had for this competition. We will definitely push our way through to top 12.”

“(To qualify) is definitely a very great achievement. We did it as a team and to be able to play at such a big stage is really exciting. We can’t wait for it, can’t wait to meet the better players and the strongest opponents,” she added.

World No. 23 Singapore arrived at the biennial continental competition as defending champions, after ending a 10-year wait for the title in 2024. In the final at the Kai Tak Sports Park, where the hosts were backed by passionate home support, Singapore dominated proceedings to secure their first back-to-back Asian titles since victories in 2012 and 2014.

During a round-robin match between the finalists on Aug 10, it was Hong Kong who held a 25-20 half-time lead, although Singapore came back to clinch a 53-40 victory.

This time, the Republic lived up to their favourites’ tag from the get-go, as they took a 23-10 lead after the first quarter and then a 32-20 advantage at half-time. After the break, Singapore added 16 more points to end the third quarter 48-26 up before more clinical shooting saw them win 57-33.

The Vandas kicked off their title defence in style with an emphatic 81-19 win against the Maldives on Aug 8, before a 62-51 victory against Sri Lanka on Singapore’s National Day on Aug 9. A day later, they saw off Hong Kong before their winning run was ended by Malaysia, who won 52-46 on Aug 11.

Singapore recovered with an 87-31 win over India on Aug 12 to finish second in the six-team round-robin stage and advance as one of the top four teams before convincing wins in the semis and the final.

Toh praised her teammates for staying focused on the objective, noting that it was harder to retain the title than to win it.

“Everybody was coming out strong at us during the competition,” she said.

“But then the preparation we had, the growth of the team, and then the (training) programme itself... got us ready for this. We were ready for this. That’s why we came in so strong for it.”