Netball Proteas coach Dorette Badenhorst is planning a full training camp over Easter before the Telkom Netball League (TNL) starts in May.

The team is entering a critical phase of building up to the 2023 Netball World Cup in Cape Town after two years in which the programme was severely disrupted by Covid-19.

The Easter camp is in addition to mini-weekend training camps Badenhorst and her technical team will hold in the coming weeks to assess players.

“Our overseas players will be back in June and we will have another training camp.  England are coming in June for practice matches in Cape Town. They (England) will be without their Suncorp players but will have their English League players,” said Badenhorst.

Before the Commonwealth Games, the Proteas are also planning to play practice matches in the UK.

“After that, we travel to the UK for practice matches ahead of the Commonwealth Games. We have approached Wales to play a few warm-up matches and we also plan to play against England.”

Badenhorst said players are excited about the year ahead and happy about their ranking.

“It will be a busy year and of course we start preparing for a home World Cup in 2023. For the first time, we are less than 20 points behind Jamaica on the world rankings, which is very encouraging.

“We have played a lot of netball, despite the pandemic. We had a Test series against Malawi in 2020, and we played a Test series against Uganda in Cape Town. 

“We travelled to Northern Ireland, but those weren’t ranking matches. And we played in the African Cup of Nations in Namibia, which we won,” she said.

SA have retained fifth place in the latest International Netball Federation (INF) rankings. Uganda are sixth and Malawi, SA’s nemesis, are ranked seventh.

Australia retained their number one spot but world champions New Zealand have narrowed the gap to just five points and reigning Commonwealth Games champions England are in third position.