Gauteng-North finished the Spar national netball championships on the on the losing end on Saturday.

Gauteng-North finished the Spar national netball championships on the on the losing end on Saturday.

The defending champions lost a nail-biting final 24-25 against Boland at the University of Pretoria.

The quarter scores were 7-3 (Gauteng-North), 12-8 (Gauteng-North), 17-17 and 25-24 (Boland).

Saturday's final did not live up to expectations, especially after last year's tense affair between Gauteng-North and Northwest-South which went into extra time.

Both the defending champions and Boland committed countless unforced errors, while the goalscoring average was also sub-standard with less than 50 percent of the chances being converted into points.

In fact, both teams had 51 goal attempts with Boland using one more to be crowned the champions for 2008.

While Boland coach, Marianne van Zyl, was elated with her teams' second national championship in three years, the same cannot be said of Elize Kotze, coach of Gauteng-North.

The former national coach and member of the national team that won a silver medal at the 1995 World Championships announced her resignation.

It was also the last match for Gauteng-North's 38-year-old defender, Desmarie Kotze.

Coach Kotze did not want to use this loss as an excuse and congratulated Boland on their win, but she was visibly upset.

"For the benefit of the tournament, I would like to ask that [in future] the interests of the defending champions should be looked at more carefully.

"No defending champion in any sport would be expected to play two very tough games in one day. This is exactly what we had to do today.

"As a coach, I have always carried the interest of my players above anything else, Kotze said. - Sapa