Quad Series a useful test for beaten Proteas
There’s enough time to improve before World Cup – Chauke
Image: Grant Pitcher
Spar Proteas assistant coach Dumisani Chauke says the Quad Series revealed that there’s plenty of room for improvement for her side before Netball World Cup.
The national netball team finished in fourth place after they lost 49-42 to England in the bronze match on Wednesday. Australia was the eventual winner in Cape Town as they beat New Zealand 56-50 in the final.
Chauke’s side went to the Quad Series looking to use it as preparation for Netball World Cup, which will start in July. As the host country, the pressure is on the Proteas and the Quad Series presented the chance for them to test themselves.
The team did not win a game, they lost three matches and drew one in the four encounters they played. Looking at the overall performance, Chauke was pleased with how they went about their business.
“Overall performance, looking at where we come from, where we are right now, and where we are looking to go, I think we did pretty well. I’d give us an eight,” said Chauke when asked how she rated her team.
The areas of improvement that Chauke cited were the team’s ball placement in the middle of the court and being sharp in attack.
“We’ll take the good and areas of improvement. We have got about five months to work on those,” said Chauke.
“In terms of areas of improvement, we can improve on ball placements, sometimes the ball was placed where the England defenders could tip it to their centre, and another area of improvement we can work on is our attacking lines.
“There were times when our attacking end was not attacking their drives. For now, those two will assist us. Our defence was brilliant. They did turn ball after ball,” she said.
Chauke revealed that some players would return to their clubs overseas while the locally based players would go on tour next month to play international friendlies and then return for the resumption of the Telkom Netball League.
“We do have players that have international contracts that will be going away to the franchises, and they will be training and playing against these top players, whether it’s in England or Australia.
“We do have players that will be remaining here, we have a trip planned in Feb where we’ll be going out to play some international friendly games. Then coming back, we believe in our local league," Chauke said.