SA Netball Slips in Rankings

There will be plenty of homework to do when the Spar SA netball team return from New Zealand this week. After the high of four years ago, it’s been a disappointing World Championships for the South Africans, who finished in sixth place, losing their fifth place playoff game to Malawi 52-49 on Saturday.

Four years ago in Jamaica the SA side narrowly missed out on a spot in the semi-finals, after losing to England by just three goals. This time round the margin was a massive 30 goals, as the English seem to have taken a leap forward in world netball, while the South Africans have slipped backwards.

A drop in the rankings was perhaps inevitable, given the lack of international competition to which the team has been exposed in the last year, and the fact that they have not played as a unit for very long.

Despite this, the Championships started out relatively well for the South Africans, who claimed a 67-28 win over minnows Malaysia in their opening game.

This was followed by a 56-36 win over Barbados, but when things got serious against England in the last of their pool games, the South Africans just couldn’t keep up with the world-class pace, and were convincingly beaten by 62 goals to 32.

There was more punishment to come with a 82-23 loss to defending champions New Zealand in the quarterfinals. But this was followed by a moment of hope, as the South Africans came from behind to beat Samoa 54-50 to earn a place in the fifth place playoff match.

That was where they came up against a team with whom they are all too familiar, having been beaten by them in both the Commonwealth and Cosana Games recently – Malawi.

Several basic mistakes and an overall lacklustre performance saw them squandering an early lead and going down to the team who can now rightfully claim their nickname – the Queens of Africa.

"Our ball possession let us down again and they just fought better in the end," admitted SA captain Bronwyn Bock-Jonathan afterwards.

"Of course we’re very disappointed to finish sixth because, unless the format of the next tournament is changed, we might have to qualify for it now by winning the Cosana Games.

"Qualifying in Africa under very difficult circumstances is what we didn’t want. We haven’t improved in the last few years, while the other teams have and Netball South Africa will have to look at that.

"They need to start building for the next four years and keep the core of this team but maybe work with a squad of 30 or 40 players so there are more options."

SA coach Burta de Kock agreed with Bock-Jonathan, saying "We need to do proper planning for the next four years and keep these young players who have gained so much experience."

Meanwhile, the South Africans were shown how it is supposed to be done when Australia took on New Zealand in the final. It was neck and neck for much of the way, but the Aussies just edged ahead and managed to bag their ninth world title by defeating the defending champions 42-38.