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Grace Chingoma Senior Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Netball Association’s technical director and director of coaching and training, John Banda, has appealed to the corporate world to assist the team during their Netball World Cup preparations so that next year they would be able to compete against the heavyweights.
Speaking during the netball senior team World Cup launch roadmap in Harare on Wednesday, the ZINA technical advisor said the team needs a lot of support with things such as friendly matches, gyms, fitness trainers and dietary requirements.
“When the coaches have done everything, selected the players and are now in camp, there are so many things that we need to enable us to achieve the best that we can.
“So we are appealing to you guys, we need dieticians, we need the equipment, the gyms, the fitness trainers, for us to be able to achieve the desired result. So we are appealing to you to partner with us, to provide us with all the things that we need and we can assure you that we can achieve more,” said Banda. He believes with the right preparation, the national team will be able to stand against any team.
“We need to beat Australia, remember they say “it is not the size of the dog which matters in a fight, but the size of the fight in the dog’.” We will fight hard if we are able to get all the necessary things that we need. We need your support.
“We would also want to host Australia in our preparations for South Africa, we would also need to travel to various places, play with Malawi, and play with all those top teams so that at the end of the day we achieve that and we will surprise you it will not remain a fairy tale, what can stop us from bringing the World Cup to Zimbabwe,” he said.
Banda said they have set an ambitious target of finishing fourth at next year’s Netball World Cup in Cape Town after the team finished eighth in Liverpool in their maiden appearance.
“When we were liaising with the president we were saying we want to hit number five, but our players said they want number four.
“So we hope to achieve that, and in order to achieve that, the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee have been helping us, and ZOC talks of us producing podium players, and how can we come up with a podium player? It’s all through high-performance, and for us to be able to achieve that we need people to come and assist us,” said Banda.
The ZINA technical advisor also took the opportunity to outline the development structure of ZINA that has ensured the continuity of talent.
“So we have a very good player base as far as netball is concerned. We look at our junior policy, we have our Under-14s, we are well connected with National Association for Primary Schools, we draw our Under-14s from, we are also in good connection with NASH where we have our Under-17 teams, we have our 19- and under and we have our 21-and under.
“So it is through this player base where we have managed to achieve what we have achieved as Netball Zimbabwe,” he said.
This structure has ensured that players graduate from one age-group to another until they become Gems players.
A total of six teams that qualified for the Under-21 World Cup in 2017 went on to feature for the Gems at the Vitality World Cup in England.
“Currently, we also happen to have players who are 19 years and under who have also made it into the national team, we are the only team that is capable of doing that,” said Banda.
ZINA draw most of their players from all the lower netball divisions up to the Premier Netball League.
“When we are looking for our players we go to all the divisions up to the premier league.
“And then when it comes to player’s selection, we have got laid out performances activities which are carried out at different age groups. We have got certain skills which one is supposed to attain when they are playing for the Under-14, Under-15, and Under-17, it’s all progressive up to the national team. With that in place we have been able to achieve, all that we have achieved,” said Banda. Banda said, interestingly, they have gained a lot of supporters after they qualified for the Liverpool World Cup. But before that qualification, the Under-21 had qualified for the Junior World Cup and most people didn’t know that netball, as a sporting code, was doing an amazing job.
Online Reporter