Wales beat Sri Lanka to progress to next round of Netball World Cup

Wales have beaten Sri Lanka 56-68 to progress to the next round of the Netball World Cup in South Africa.

After losing their opening games to the hosts and losing convincingly to Jamaica yesterday, Wales bounced back to edge a tight contest.

The Welsh Feathers, ranked ninth in the world, won three of the quarters by just two points against the winless Lionesses, ranked 15th.

They finish third in Pool C and will now compete with the top three sides from Pool D in the next round.

Next up they face defending champions New Zealand on Monday (10:00 BST) before matches against Uganda and Trinidad and Tobago.

Captain Nia Jones told Sky Sports: “I think it took us a little bit too long to get into the game.

“We spoke beforehand about having to be on our best to beat this Sri Lankan team, they were undoubtedly going to improve as the tournament went along and of course they’ve got really accurate target shooters in there and we’re not the tallest of teams, so we had to be creative with the strategies that we won ball with today.

“We will undoubtedly have to be better than we were today tomorrow against New Zealand, but I’ve got confidence we can be.”