Netball coach refuses to press panic button
Kabelo Boranabi | Friday July 29, 2016 12:45
The tournament began with a resounding 66-9 win over minnows Lesotho and the only other victory came from another lowly ranked side, Namibia.
Not taking away from the wins, Lesotho brought a very inexperienced side while Namibia according to their coach did not have the best preparations ahead of the competition, and played together as a team for the first time in the tournament.
Ranked 19th in Africa and fourth in Africa, Botswana lost to a very tactically disciplined Zambia side in the second game and suffered a heavy 66-33 defeat to Africa’s top ranked side, South Africa.
Botswana is already through to next year’s event as hosts but their defeats raise eyebrows. After failing to secure an international coach due to financial constraints, the team is under the guidance of Setshidi Botlhole-Mmopi and Under-21 coach, Judith Mawela. Botlhole-Mmipi, despite unsatisfying results, is adamant that they are on the right track and argues it is too early to judge the team.
“Our focus is building for 2017. I’m actually more focused on the development of players. We have a very new team for this tournament,” Botlhole-Mmipi said. She said the team is missing four players who ply their trade in Australia.
“We felt it is too soon to have them now, looking at our programme. We know what they are capable of as we get progress reports. We would bring them at a later stage. At the moment we are looking at what we have on the ground and we are trying to work with that and develop new players,” she said.
She expects the Australia-based quartet to easily fit into the team.
“We have a year (until the World Cup). We have a programme when we would invite those players. We would not want to be stuck with the so-called regular players. We wanted to have a wide pool of players.”
“We have a lot of work to do before next year’s event. I’m impressed with the crop we have in camp. One of the new players, Cheludo David has improved a lot, she can now fight for the ball and her accuracy has improved,” she said.
Botlhole-Mmipi said they want international friendly matches with stronger teams before the World Cup in July next year. They will take on Africa’s number three, Malawi today and round off their campaign with a date against Zimbabwe tomorrow.