THE final of three sessions in this year’s Peebles Netball Primary 7 Coaching Academy was held at the weekend with 30 girls from across Tweeddale schools treated to a visit from their favourite Scottish Thistles Jo Pettitt and Lauren Tait.

Jo and Lauren were both talent identified by Peebles Netball when they were in West Linton Primary 7, and both went on to play for Peebles throughout high school, achieving huge success.

Both were selected for the Scottish national team over recent years, with Jo shooting for Scotland in the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

The Primary 7 girls were able to put questions to Jo and Lauren who provided fascinating accounts of their lives as international netball stars. Both stressed the importance of healthy diets and putting 100 per cent effort into all training.

Jo described the thousands of practice shots on goal she has to accomplish each week on top of her routine training.

Lauren talked of the frustrations of playing in defence with the frequent contact and penalty calls, and how she dealt with being “sin-binned” in her very first international match. Jo and Lauren went on to take some skills and drills before signing autographs.

The Coaching Academy is a Peebles Netball initiative, supported by Live Borders, to enable all P7 netball players, no matter how small their school, to meet other girls who enjoy playing netball and to have fun training and playing mini-matches together.