St. John’s Antigua- Plans for the return of netball at the senior national level are on track as the Antigua & Barbuda Netball Association (ABNA) looks to jump-start its senior league on Monday at YMCA Sports Complex.

This is according to the association’s president, Fitz Braithwaite, who said some six teams have already registered for the “come-back” competition with another six expected to register shortly.

“All the teams are not registered as yet; $150 to register is all they have to pay. Some teams are still not with uniforms and the executive is looking at how we can uniform these teams because we realise the financials (are not available) and there are quite a few people in the country putting things together and making sure that the netball happens. We have about six teams registered and we are expecting another six minimum and they have up to Friday for the deadline,” he said.

According to Braithwaite however, the absence of adequate lighting continues to be the association’s biggest concern going into Monday’s competition, and although they had been given a commitment from Public Works where the provision of portable lights are concerned, he is still hoping for a “miracle.”

“Things are looking good, real good in terms of our plans. We had a meeting last week with our general body and we are having a next one this week to finalise all the areas that we need to cover and the only problem that we are looking like we’re having up to now is that we will not have overhead lights as we planned to have,” he said.

“We will have to still depend on the Public Works people to bring in and use temporary lights for the first part of it. Unless there is a miracle over the weekend, we are not sure we are going to have lights.”

Monday’s competition will mark the return of netball at that level after an almost four-year hiatus. The ABNA had successfully held two tournaments leading into Monday’s planned league.