SINGAPORE — After losing all but one of their three preliminary round matches at the ongoing 2015 Netball World Cup (NWC) in Sydney, the target now for Singapore’s netballers is to improve on their No 15 world ranking.

The reigning Asian and South-east Asian (SEA) Games champions headed to Australia last week, fully aware that advancing beyond Pool C — where they were grouped with South Africa (No 5), Malawi (No 6) and Sri Lanka (No 22) — was going to be a tough affair.

Predictably they lost to the higher-ranked teams and only won against their Asian rivals.

With New Zealand, Jamaica, Malawi, Uganda, Australia, England, South Africa and Wales progressing from their respective pools to battle it out for the world title, what’s left for Singapore and the remaining seven teams is the fight for ninth spot.

They start that mission this morning at the Sydney Olympic Park Allphones Arena against Samoa, who are ranked two rungs above them.

The two teams are in Group G along with Trinidad and Tobago (No 9), and Zambia (No 20), while the other losing teams Barbados, Scotland, Sri Lanka and Fiji are in Group H.

Singapore last played Samoa twice at the 2014 Netball Nations Cup in the Republic nine months ago, but lost both encounters, 53-47,50-41, to the eventual winners of the tournament. This time at the World Cup, the odds are better for coach Ruth Aitken’s side, because the Samoans are without their deadly veteran goal-shooter, Monica Fuimaono, who has skipped the competition.

But speaking from Sydney, the Kiwi cautioned they can still expect a “very tight game”.

“Samoa play a very aggressive style and like to close down our spaces to slow our game down, as they have done so in our past encounters,” said the 59-year-old. “But we also have our strengths, which is having the knack of breaking free in open spaces to release the ball in a quick pass-and-go momentum.”

Half of the players are making their first appearance at the World Cup, and Singapore captain Lin Qingyi and the other senior players have been helping them keep their focus against some of the world’s best.

Lin said: “The ball is travelling twice as fast here and they have never seen such plays before. They are sometimes anxious when they are in possession of the ball. So we have been trying to help them out and the senior players among us will typically just pack ourselves around them. We just have each other’s backs.”

The Republic’s best placing at the quadrennial meet was 12th in 1999, and to breach that mark they must beat Samoa, said Aitken. She put the team through their paces yesterday with an emphasis to play harder and faster to counter the opponents.

The Singapore coach said: “We had a good session in the late morning, and did some video analyses on Samoa’s game, and came up with a plan on how to take them on. We need to win two out of three games in this group, and the reality is that if we don’t, we’ll end up fighting for the bottom four places. But when we play to our best abilities on any given day, we can beat any team.”