SINGAPORE — The Republic’s netballers have hit a bump in their bid to complete the ongoing 2015 Netball World Cup in the highest possible ninth spot, after falling to Samoa 46-39 yesterday in Sydney.

Their best achievement in the quadrennial tournament was 12th in 1999, and now equalling even that mark seems tough.

The SEA Games and Asian champions were knocked out of the group stages over the weekend that separated them from the top eight in the 16-team competition.

The teams in the lower half have been divided into two groups to determine 16th to ninth placings, and Singapore need to pull off an upset against world No 9 Trinidad & Tobago this morning to keep hopes of bettering their record in the series alive.

But according to coach Ruth Aitken, they are still feeling fired up after going toe-to-toe against the taller Samoans for the most part of the match.

“The girls are obviously really disappointed with the loss, but now it is about stepping up and bouncing back — which we have done before — with good fights against T&T and Zambia (on Friday),” said Aitken.

“Things have gotten tougher for us, but we can still do it. I have talked to them about consistency (at the SEA Games), and they really need to have that now, especially at a world-class competition like this. So we will need to work on it.”

Singapore have beaten the higher-ranked Trinidad & Tobago team in the 2007 Netball Nations Cup here, but they are a different side now.

Said Singapore captain Lin Qingyi: “T&T have improved by leaps and bounds, and have broken into the top 10 rankings. They looked so much stronger and faster in the World Cup. But what may work in our favour is that although we are smaller in size, we can be faster than them. Nothing is impossible and, if we keep our focus and perform, we can beat them.” ADELENE WONG