The tournament started well on Friday night but matters took a different turn on Saturday evening when Splinters were fixtured to play the final immediately after they won their semi-final match. Earlier suggestions by Splinters that the women's final should be played immediately after the men's semi-final to give the men a breather before the decider fell on deaf ears. The women's final was therefore played before the men's semi-finals. Splinters' captain Scorpion Setaelo told Mmegi Sport that he was lost for words when the tournament organisers failed to be logical. "We were all left surprised when the organisers could not fixture our semi-final before the women final and the men's final last in order to create a break between the last men's semi-final and final. Instead they preferred to fixture the women's final before the two men's semi-final games and what this meant was that we played two games without a break," he said.
The Splinters' official said the problem occurred when the organisers wilted under pressure from women. The women defied orders by officials including BBA president to leave the court to allow the men's semi-finals to be played. "They (women) were stubborn and the committee members watched in awe as they prevailed," Setaelo said.
However, BBA secretary general Mothusi Phokoje dismissed Splinters' claims as baseless. "They agreed to play both games. It was them who wanted to play saying they were in a hurry to go back to Francistown," said Phokoje.
