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Junior netball ready for Commonwealth Games

25 July 2023 14:44
By:Busisiwe Mokwena
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Kiara van Eeden © Gallo Images

National Under-19 netball coach Emily Mathosa believes her team is ready for the upcoming Commonwealth Youth Games.

The 2023 edition of the Games will be the first that will see netball being played. Commonwealth Games Federation added the Fast5 netball for the tournament that will is scheduled for 4-11 August in Trinidad and Tobago. The tournament will feature athletes aged 14-18.

The team will be hoping to take a leaf out of the senior Fast5 team which brought back home a silver medal from the Fast5 Netball World Series tournament which took place in New Zealand late last year.

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Mathosa is satisfied that her team is ready for the task ahead.

“We had a training camp in June because of the schedules with the Telkom Netball League and school. We didn’t want to come in between their school events, which is also netball, we didn’t want to overwork them with the work that we do. We were able to manage their load of training as well. The preparations are going well, the players are doing well. All of them were playing at the Under-19 (Telkom Netball Championship-TNC), and we were able to see how they compete in the Championship. I believe they are ready,” says Mathosa.

'THE BEST TEAM FOR THE JOB'

Still fresh from winning the Telkom Netball League Division Two title, which also saw her side, Limpopo Baobabs, getting promoted to the elite Division One stream, Mathosa wants nothing but a gold medal. She however understands that it won’t be that easy.

“Winning is the only expectation. I love winning and I also believe they want to win. I don’t know how the tournament will be because it’s Fast5 and not the normal netball that we are used to playing. It’s a different setup of netball, we are hoping to win but we will take it one game at a time and see how we pull through so that we will be able to plan. Right now we are doing the hard work behind the scenes where nobody sees what we are preparing for or who we are preparing for. I believe we can take on any team that comes on to us, we just have to make sure win and get good results. We don’t want to go out there and not win anything. We would rather go out there and win something before we come back,” she says.

A bulk of the players that will represent the country in the Caribbean were competing in several competitions recently, including the TNC and the DSTV Schools Netball Challenge which has kept them match fit for the international competition.

Kubura Abubakar, Jade Atkins, Zahrah Noah and Kiara van Eeden all took individual awards at the TNC held in Belville, Cape Town. Mathosa says this is an indication that the selectors got the best team for the job.

“Based on the girls that we have that are part of the travelling team, I think they are really physically fit and ready. Seven of them made the SA team again for the Under-17 team at the Championship. It shows they are performing really well. Four of them got individual awards at the Championship, I really believe they are ready. It shows that if they are able to get those accolades, during tournaments that are hard, they are able to go on all the way. They are all injury free right now, we are fine in that department,” she says.

Although the senior Commonwealth Games feature the regular seven-player netball, this year’s edition of the youth tournament debuts the Fast5. The Fast5 is a shorter version of the game which allows only five players to be fielded.

It allows rolling substitutes and matches only 24 minutes long and split into six-minute quarters.

The Baobabs coach says she and her team have been instilling the rules of the game in the training camps that the team has been having.

“We do tell them that they need to watch the Fast5 (games), they get used to the game. They need to get used to the rules. In our camp, we only played Fast5 matches with them, we were teaching them what Fast5 requires. We didn’t play seven on seven, we only played five on five because they need to get used to the speed. They need to get used to the buzzer, they need to get used to the time of the Power Play and everything. We trained based on how the game is played. I really believe that they know and understand that we are going to play a different type of game but we need fitness. We are lucky enough that we were able to train with the University of Pretoria players. They were able to play at the standard of seniors. They will be able to do what is right,” she says.

SQUAD

Kubura Abubakar, Jade Atkins, Ametisse Bandu, Maria Du Raan, Amone Wessels, Thato Legodi, Zahrah Noah, Luane Smith, Kiara Van Eeden, Karla Victor

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