'We have to beat Singapore'

DESPITE losing their opening match of the World Netball Championships against Jamaica in Singapore yesterday, national netball team coach Elize Kotze is confident they will qualify for the quarterfinals

The Proteas will play against hosts Singapore in their second group stage match today.

Despite leading 34-20 at half time, the Proteas allowed Jamaica to regroup and defeat them 72-45.

The defeat makes South Africa's progress at the tournament more difficult as the team finishing second in Pool C (Proteas' pool) will meet the winner of Pool B in the quarterfinals, and that will almost certainly be world No1 New Zealand.

Kotze said she was disappointed, but praised her team for the way they fought back in the second half.

"We cannot make excuses. We were beaten by a better team. We need to play the top four teams on a more regular basis to get used to playing at that level," Kotze said yesterday. "We will have a hard training session and try to remedy some of our mistakes.

"We have to beat Singapore to make sure we have a chance of getting through to the quarterfinals. We know Singapore after we played against them recently. We will use different strategies and different combinations for that game."

Proteas' goal defender Leigh-Ann Zackey said playing the host nation was always a privilege.

"We know that there will be a lot of support for them, and we always enjoy playing in front of a crowd. We hope to play well enough to win the crowd over," Zackey said yesterday.