Go back to Here for Her

Proteas use Africa Cup success to forge future and fuel growth

17 December 2025 22:42
By:Busisiwe Mokwena
Share
article image
Zanele Mdodana © Gallo Images

The South African senior national netball coaches are happy with what the teams delivered in the recently wrapped Africa Netball Cup.

Both teams managed to successfully defend their titles, bringing back to back glory to the country.

The Spar Proteas faced a determined Uganda in the final and they came out victorious with a 56-34 win, while the Proteas Men brought Zimbabwe down with 40-29 score to remain the kings of African netball.

Advertisement

Assistant Spar Proteas coach Zanele Mdodana says it was not only important to retain the title but the coaching team was looking for more. 

Baby Spar Proteas mid-court star Kyla Dames earned her first senior cap in the competition while Juanita van Tonder, who played in only the last match of the Proteas tour to Australasia in October, got her first taste of the Africa Netball Cup.

Mdodana says the competition helped the coaches plan for the future tournaments and work on several combinations.

“It was good for us because we had brought in Kyla Dames in the midcourt for her debut. She had a starting opportunity, she was really brilliant. We also had Juanita as well, it was important for us to see how those two players fare in this competition because the bigger picture is July next year. The team’s performance was really good and having a debutant easily slot into the team like she’s been with us for a long time was magnificent.

The rest of the squad, rotating our combinations gave us a good idea of the level of depth that we have but also how strong that depth is. Going to the upcoming competitions, we cannot be one trick ponies. We can’t have just one combination that we rely on. We have got to be able to have a conveyer belt that whoever you play just slots in and there is no momentum shift in the performance,” says Mdodana.

The former Proteas captain says she had hoped her side would get tested a lot more than they did in Lilongwe as the team prepares for the England incoming series early next year as well as the Commonwealth Games from 23 July to 2 August in Glasgow.

“I think it would have been nice if we could have had more matches. I don’t think we need as many rest days as we got but from a competitive perspective we expected tougher competition especially from teams like Malawi and Uganda. We have seen that Uganda won the Celtic Cup before coming to the competition.

“Unfortunately they didn’t have a big name player in Mary Cholhok, so they were sort of a bit thin in the shooting circle department. It was tough to watch Malawi struggle at home because we know the type of team Malawi is. They play with so much pride and confidence but they had a really tough tournament, even losing to Zimbabwe in the third place playoffs,” she says.

MEN MAKING A STATEMENT

Meanwhile the men’s team coach, Jabulani Vilane believes that this victory is a statement of the national team’s talent and the capabilities.

He says he hopes the Department of Sports will increase its support to the sport to help it to grow.

“The competition was tough. We had to be mentally prepared, we had to make sure that we try all the strategies we have to make sure that we come back with our gold again. The win was a way to advocate for males’ netball in our country. We hope that this win will have the minister also putting in some focus in the sport especially with the World Cup coming. We really need support from all the leaders of the country, especially the department. We promise not to ever disappoint (the country), as long as we try and grow the sport,” he says.

The Ziphozonke Netball Club coach admits that the competition was not easy. He says the team had to use different combinations from the group stages until the final.

“The performance was good but when we started with the group matches we were a bit shaky, because we were trying to come up with the right combinations. We had to make sure that we come up with a combination that Zimbabwe were not expecting in the final and it worked for us,” he explains.

The mentor was pleased with Njabulo Nekhavhambe’s performance in the competition as the only debutant in his team.

“He came into the team and made a good impact. I think he will grow going forward. He will definitely contribute to men’s netball,” he says.

Vilane says although he is happy to see the consistency of some teams taking part in the competition he wishes that more African countries would take men’s netball more seriously and entered the continental competition.

“I see the consistency of some of the regular teams in the competition. If more African teams can also try to join in, that would be great. Kenya has been a consistent team coming to the tournament but the turnout was better this year compared to last year,” he explains.

Advertisement