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Ellina Mhlanga-Senior Sports Reporter
RAINBOW Netball League defending champions Glow Petroleum got their 2023 season campaign on a promising note when they won their opening games against Mambas and Hi-flyers over the weekend at Morris Depot.
Glow Petroleum were the biggest winners in the first week of the season after overpowering Hi-flyers 104-3 at Morris Depot.
They also beat last season’s runners-up Mambas 49-43 in the other match, which was a close battle between the two sides.
Glow Petroleum coach, Perpetua Siyachitema, said it is too early to tell how the season will go but was pleased with her team’s performance over the weekend, in particular in their game against Mambas.
“Well I can say, since the season is just starting, I think it’s too early but I think my girls played well despite having little time for training.
“I think both teams played well. Maybe we were the better team of the day. I think my girls played well, they played according to instructions,” said Siyachitema.
Glow Petroleum retained the title last season and will be hoping to hold on to their dominance this season.
In other matches, Correctional also had a positive start when beating Khami 72-23.
They went on to dismiss Agape 77-18. The matches were played in Chitungwiza.
Four teams — Mthala, Jinjika, Delta Transport and Belvedere Teachers College — joined the league to make it an 18-team league for this season.
Last year there were 14 teams.
The league’s secretary-general, Moses Gukurume, said they expect to see their teams operating in a professional manner this season.
“We now have 18 teams, we are running an 18-team league.
“Our expectations are that this year teams behave very professionally and manage to fulfil their games. We don’t want a situation whereby we say, mid-season we have to sit down and chase other clubs for lack of professionalism or lack of fulfilling games.
“We also want to maintain a lot of discipline amongst our teams, we want to see teams respecting umpires, respecting every match official,” said Gukurume.
With the senior national team going for the Netball World Cup from July 28 to August 6, they have to make sure they stick to their schedule since there will be some disruptions.
“Also as a league we are very geared up to behave professionally this year, pay our dues in time and try to make sure we manage time since we have got a very short season this season. We expect disruptions in the form of the national squad playing outside the country and we also have national elections.
“So we would like to see how we can manage our time in as far as this season is concerned because it is very short.
“We started our games on the 4th of February. We are very excited that we managed to fulfil most of our games although we had some teething challenges in terms of the beginning of the season.
“But we are happy that we managed to play most of our games save for one bubble that had only one game and the other team didn’t manage to travel. So we are looking forward to a very exciting season,” Gukurume said.
Goldreef were scheduled to face Golden Valley and Delta Transport but did not turn up. The matches were awarded to their opponents.
Results
Agape 20, Khami 49; Correctional 72, Khami 23; Correctional 77, Agape 18; Shamva Mine 31, Ruwa 39; Support Unit 51, Ruwa 25; Shamva Mine 28, Support Unit 46; Tenax 54, Mthala 26; Tenax 56, Jinjika 18; Mthala 44, Jinjika 31; Golden Valley 21, Delta Transport 39; Golden Valley 25, Goldreef 0; Delta Transport 25, Goldreef 0; Mambas 43, Glow Petroleum 49; Glow Petroleum 104, Hi-flyers 03; Shamva Urban 51, Lusumbami 39; Shamva Urban 56, Belvedere 38; Lusumbami 54, Belvedere 42.
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