admin
Tadious Manyepo Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe senior netball team, the Gems, have made remarkable progress ahead of their participation in the annual Diamond Challenge Cup to be staged in Pretoria, South Africa, later this month.
The Gems, who are now sponsored by Spar Zimbabwe, will be hoping to use the competition to fine-tune themselves for next year’s Netball World Cup to be held in Cape Town in the same country.
They have been in camp over the past three weeks with coach Ropafadzo Mutsauki hammering the need for them to up their defensive displays.
Mutsauki yesterday told The Herald his girls have made some key progress, especially in terms of co-ordination but they still need to perfect their defensive act.
“I am happy with the progress that I am seeing in my camp so far. We started working on fitness, both physical and mental, now we are more concerned with the technical and tactical side.
“We are now working with game situations and I am happy things are shaping up remarkably well,” said Mutsauki.
“Communication amongst the girls was lacking in the court, resulting in strained co-ordination. I am happy, they have immensely improved in this respect and the progress is encouraging.
“The biggest aspect of the game we are hammering on is defence. We need to apply extra effort when defending. We need to defend as a team, trying to restrict our opponents right from their own ring. The biggest challenge with us is that we lack height in our team.
“When you lack height, you need to atone by working very hard on the court. We should defend as a team starting from the opponent’s ring as soon as we lose possession, we should start pressing to regain the ball.
“This is the biggest area we are now focusing on as we look forward to a fruitful Diamond Challenge Cup in South Africa.”
Mutsauki said the Gems stand a good chance of doing well at the tournament.
“The girls are responding well to our methods and we will certainly find it difficult picking the last 15 because everyone is doing well.
“We are obviously looking forward to a good showing at the Diamond Challenge Cup.”
Zimbabwe’s trip to the Diamond Challenge Cup is being bankrolled by a UK-based consultancy Ree Sports which has since bought air tickets for the entire squad.
Ree Sports director Godfrey Mugadza-Kanengoni said all logistics were in place. “Remember the Diamond Challenge Cup was initially scheduled for Durban before it was moved to Pretoria. We had already paid for accommodation in Durban and air tickets.
“We are paying for re-routing and everything is generally on course. The kits have been secured as well and we can safely say all is set,” he said.
“As Ree Sports, our vision is to see the Gems doing very well in international tournaments. We saw the Diamond Challenge Cup as an opportunity for them to gain more experience as we build towards the World Cup coming next year. “After the Diamond Challenge Cup, we are planning to officially launch Ree Sports in Zimbabwe.” Scotland, Northern Ireland and the hosts are some of the participants expected in the meet in Pretoria.
Online Reporter