Five things you can do to improve your netball skills

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England netballImage source, Getty Images

England's netballers are in the middle of playing the world's best teams in the Quad series.

So far they've beaten South Africa in Durban but lost to New Zealand in Liverpool.

On Sunday they take on the best team in the world - Australia - at Wembley Arena.

As the Roses look towards their final game in the series, they've given Newsbeat some tips about what you can do to improve your game.

1. Keep on chatting

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Captain Ama, who plays GD, says communication is key

"Communication is key," England captain Ama Agbeze tells Newsbeat.

"So keep working with the players around you and talking to them.

"It's a team game so communicating helps loads.

"It means if your teammates cover one thing, you can set yourself up for getting interceptions."

2. Practice makes perfect (sort of)

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"Set play can be quite difficult to set up in a game, but if you practise them and practise them, they can work," Ama explains.

"But they don't always go right - and then you panic thinking about what else can you do.

"So in training perhaps practice things you may think will happen.

"It's good to go through potential scenarios."

3. Get yourself a wall

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Chelsea practises her ball skills against a wall

For an attacker like Chelsea Pitman, ball skills are the most important thing to practise.

"You don't need to wait until team training; you can get a ball and a concrete wall," Chelsea tells Newsbeat.

"Put some markers on the wall and aim for it - using both hands passing from right to left.

"If you continuously work on that - you can be unfit, a short player or whatever. If you're great with the ball you can be amazing player."

4. Fuel your body

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Ama says eating a balanced diet is important for high intensity sports like netball

"You have to see your body like a car - you have to put the right fuel in it to run properly," Chelsea says.

"Educate yourself about what you need to eat to be able to perform at a high intensity.

"Obviously everyone is different so it's having the confidence to ask someone who knows a bit more and who can educate you on what to eat.

"For me I like it simple. I like a lot veggies, meat and carbs."

Ama agrees. "I'm all about the balance. So sometimes I do have a bar of chocolate because it's a pick-me-up mentally.

"Protein is really important and eating lots of vegetables too.

"Don't restrict yourself on the amount you eat because when you're training lots, you're burning energy and you need to fuel your body."

5. Bend, jump and run

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Yoga and touch rugby can help improve your game

It's not all about netball. Lots of England's players have played loads of different sports.

Team captain Ama used to do athletics.

"It's good to get a balance of sports," she says.

"Yoga really helps with flexibility or if you become agile in touch rugby you can bring that to netball.

"Getting out there and doing things you like, being social and if you enjoy it then that's the main thing really."

You can watch England take on Australia live on BBC Two and the BBC Sport website from 1pm on Sunday.

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