After a successful campaign last month when the Tifa Moana won the Pacific Australia Netball Series, head coach Natalie Mathews is back in the country and she is looking at development.

She arrived on Sunday and kicked off her clinics at St Mary's College, Vaimoso on Monday. Her clinics focused more on basic skills and footwork. 

She said she was impressed with the players' fundamentals and introduced new concepts. 

"I was quite surprised they were really good. Their basics they nailed it. I was just introducing a couple of tips for things they may be open to and not exposed to before. I heard they are quite competitive and it's always a pleasure to be around school girls," said Mathews. 

"And it is always nice when you get to introduce new concepts to players and then watch them execute it. We did finish with a little bit of a match play so that was pretty cool.

"The point of me being on the island is development, looking at how we can implement stuff in the schools and then creating resources based on what they need. We will be uploading those to our website over the coming days so that teachers and coaches have access to them. 

"They can just download if they need them. And tonight will be an opportunity for the island players to get a one-on-one with me. We'll be looking at the same thing, their skills, what they're executing and how they're executing them. I guess probably provide them with tips so they can be able to perform at their best during games."

Natalie was surprised by the St Mary's College junior, intermediate and senior netball teams. 

"They've got some massive heights which is very beneficial. They were quick to pick up what we were giving them, trying to do it, implementing it and having fun with it, which was cool to see. And that's my favourite part. Working with schools is always fun. In terms of tonight, I'm not sure what I'm going to get," she said. 

"The office has been working with the girls for the last few weeks and we've been sending through some stuff for them to work on. I guess I'll be seeing whether or not they've been doing that hard work over the last four to six weeks. The way I coach, I'm very technical so I will break down every part of the movement until I see them, it's hard to have a relayed message."

"Tonight is important because I'll get an indication of what they do, then, I can break that down and create some programs for them. Tonight will also tell me where their strengths and weaknesses are, which is what I need to create the programming around. We will adapt to all of the sessions that we do with them to strengthen their weaknesses effectively."

She will be on the island for about two weeks and throughout her stay, she focuses on the development of players and netball. She also confirmed that funding is still a challenge for Netball Samoa.

"We've had a few meetings with a few organisations, and it is partly obtaining funding but also understanding what we need to do to get it. It's understanding the questions that we should be asking, what we need to present, what businesses want to align with us and what's important I guess. 

"We're currently sitting at 14th, if we can get ourselves at 12th by September, we'll get an invite for a game, so there's still that little window. Beyond that, the goal is to be in the top 10 in the next two years."