The intense rivalry between Jamaica’s Sunshine Girls and England’s Vitality Roses will see its next chapter when the teams meet in a crucial four-match Test series in November.

The Roses and the Sunshine Girls are currently second and fourth with 189 and 187 rating points, respectively, in the Netball World Rankings based on matches up to October 6.

Sandwiched between the two is New Zealand with 188 points while Australia have a comfortable lead atop the rankings with 209 rating points.

The series will see the Jamaicans travelling to England for matches on November 16 and 17 at the AO Arena in Manchester before hosting the Roses at the National Indoor Sports Centre on November 25 and 26.

As has been previously stated, this rivalry has been one of the most competitive in global netball and, to give some context, here are the results from various series and matchups between the two over the last 10 years.

The teams met on five occasions in total in 2015. They met in a three-match Test series in January in Jamaica which the hosts won 2-1 before meeting twice at the Netball World Cup in Australia in August.

Drawn together in the Group Stage, England defeated the Sunshine Girls 54-50 in the preliminaries before producing a dominant display in the bronze-medal game, winning 66-44.

A year later, the teams met again in a three-match Test series, this time in England with the Jamaicans once again coming out 2-1 winners.

Current Sunshine Girls captain and best goal shooter in the world at the moment, Jhaniele Fowler-Nembhard, kept it simple when recalling her favourite memory facing the Roses throughout her illustrious career.

“My best memory playing against England throughout my career has to definitely be any time we’ve beaten them,” she told Sportsmax.tv at a Sunshine Girls training session at the National Indoor Sports Centre last Friday.

“I take great joy in going up against them, especially beating them on their home turf,” she added.

A major tournament was once again the setting for the pair’s next meeting, this time at the 2017 Fast5 Netball World Series in Australia.

Jamaica defeated England 47-38 in the round robin stage but it was England who had the last laugh, defeating the Sunshine Girls 34-29 when it mattered most to win the title for the first time.

The teams next locked horns in the last four at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia.

England entered that game in red hot form, dominating everyone in the preliminary round on their way to a 5-0 record while Jamaica’s only loss up to that point in their five preliminary round games was to Australia.

The teams fought to the death in the semi-final with England eventually coming out victorious 56-55 before winning another nail-biter, 52-51 over Australia, to win gold.

Jamaica took bronze with a 60-55 win over New Zealand.

Current Sunshine Girl and global netball star, Shamera Sterling-Humphrey, described that semi-final as a bittersweet moment when asked about her most vivid memories of facing the Roses in her career.

“I would say it’s a bad and a good memory because at least we were able to challenge England to that extent,” she told Sportsmax.tv.

A few months later that same year, the Girls got their revenge with a 3-0 Test series whitewash over their counterparts at home. The 2023 Suncorp Super Netball player of the year described this series as the best moment of her national team career, so far.

Moving on to the 2019 Netball World Cup which was hosted by England where the rivalry renewed in the preliminary round.

The hosts came out winners 56-48 and went on to claim bronze while Jamaica failed to advance to the semi-finals, finishing fifth.

Jamaica came out on top over the Roses at the 2020 Netball Nations Cup in England. They met in the third round with the Sunshine Girls coming out 70-66 winners before eventually losing the final 56-67 to New Zealand.

2021 saw England’s Roses secure their first Test series win over the Sunshine Girls since 2013 with a 2-1 win in Nottingham.

The two sides last met in January 2023 in a three-match test series played in Manchester and London which saw the Vitality Roses defeat Jamaica 73-52 in the first match, take a narrow 58-61 loss in the second match, and claim the series with a 63-59 win in the third and final test.

Amazingly, the two sides didn’t meet at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham or last summer’s Netball World Cup in South Africa.

The Sunshine Girls took silver in Birmingham while the Roses finished fourth. The World Cup saw England take home a historic silver medal while Jamaica took bronze.

It remains to be seen who will come out on top in the latest edition of this rivalry but one thing’s for sure, it will be exciting.