No Aussie deal yet for netball trio

Naledi Lemogang | Wednesday September 13, 2017 15:19

 

Three players from the Under-21 team have attracted the interest of an Australian team

The Bunbury-based club spotted the players during the 2017 Netball World Youth Cup (NWYC) preparations when Botswana toured Australia. 

BONA vice president technical, Lorato Thebekgosi said they have been engaged in negotiations with the South West Jets team managers since after the NWYC.

Chief amongst the discussions, is to find out how the players would benefit if a deal is struck. She said it has not been easy throughout the communication as the Australian team take a while to respond therefore the players are kept waiting.

“We are working very hard to ensure that our players benefit from any deal. Therefore, we are yet to seal the deal (and we can only do so) after we see what is on offer for the players. So far they have promised to take care of the accommodation,” Thebekgosi said.

“They also proposed that the players can choose to study one of four proposed courses at one of the universities there.”

She said the players want to go, but the Australian team has been slow to respond even though the club really wants them. “If everything goes well, they would be applying for student visas and asking for some other assistance from the government because so far we told them that we can take care of the flights,” she added.  David plays as a goal shooter (GS) while Dino and Matibini play in defence. The trio was recently called up for the senior national team’s tour of Namibia for the inaugural Pent Series Netball tournament played last week. Botswana finished third out of the four countries that participated. Senior team manager, Malebo Raditladi said yesterday the games were not that tough, it was only that they did not have proper preparations due to the short notice to take part in the tournament.

She said the team did its level best against more experienced players from other countries saying that they were losing most of their centre passes through rushing to release the balls and were struggling to intercept the balls to regain their lost points. “Our senior national team struggles not because of lack of talent but because they do not get enough match practice, mostly they get that team practice during the competitions. We have no funds to keep the team together in camp,” Raditladi said.