Poor Preparations Blamed For Netball Demise
Calistus Kolantsho | Monday December 10, 2018 13:56
Botswana suffered their third consecutive loss against South Africa yesterday at the UB Indoor Sports Centre.
Botswana was beaten 82-19. In the first game Botswana lost to Zimbabwe followed by another defeat at the hands of Namibia.
Makwatse told Sport Monitor that poor preparations coupled with the fact that they were not allowed to select from players who competed during Botswana Games, were to blame. She said selection time was not enough.
“I was given a list of 43 players and I was to select 20 players which was a difficult process. I had to depend on the positions that they had written besides their names. So I just thought they were mature. When they came for camp, it was a problem. I even suggested that we beef up with some players who played in the Under-21 World Cup, but that was impossible,” she said. Makwatse said she had in mind five players who were in the senior national team, unfortunately they were not followed to bring documents. She said the team is just playing to honour fixtures.
“We are just shouting at them but you can see when they are playing that they did not have exposure. They have never played anywhere and some of them do not even have clubs.
“We only had three camps, being the selection camp where I had to trim the team to 12, then the second camp was two days and the last one was a day. The final camp was in Orapa for 10 days, which was still not enough,” she said.
Makwatse said such preparations were not enough for a competition of this magnitude.
Regarding the game against South Africa, Makwatse said her players gave their opponents too much respect. She said the players were playing against the name of the country and that shook them.
“They were not applying themselves. I advised them to show character and reach the shooting circle. That way it would show that they are building. South Africa had tall players and they piled pressure on us,” Makwatse said.
Botswana is playing Malawi today. She said they should use the game as a learning curve.
For her part South Africa coach, Dumisani Chauke said they knew Botswana would come out with guns blazing.
South Africa has won four matches so far. Chauke said the plan is to defend the gold medal that they won in Angola.
“We had to stay focused on our goal, which is to reach the final on Wednesday.
“It is unfortunate that the margin had to be that big. Our aim was to stick to our plan, which was to play discipline netball and attack. We also wanted to avoid conceding many errors,” Chauke said.