Source: www.guardian.co.tt
The national netball team gave a far better showing against South Africa in the second match of their international Test series but the “Calypso Girls” still went under, 60-52. This was at the Western Cape Sport School in Kuilsrivier in South Africa on Wednesday night. The win means that the South African team has bagged the three-match series after winning the opening encounter, 57-38 on Tuesday. Both teams are using the series as a warmup for the upcoming World Championship set for July 3-10 in Singapore. Despite the Proteas taking an unassailable lead of 2-0 in the series, the T&T unit rated eighth in the world, will be pleased to see some improvement from its previous 19-goal loss against the sixth-ranked team. As in the first Test T&T did not start well, with their impatience and bad communication seeing them trailing 18-11 at the end of the first period. But the wheels started to come off after the break, as the T&T players took full advantage of the South Africans sloppy play.
The usually excellent interplay between the South Africans goal shooters Claudia Basson and Maryka Holtzhausen were also nowhere to be seen, and Basson was under a lot of pressure as both goal defenders covered her, recognising Holtzhausen’s reluctance to shoot goals. Holtzhausen was responsible for only seven of the 60 goals. The Proteas took the halftime break with a lead of 31-22. On the contrary, South Africa won the third quarter by only one goal (14-13) and lost the fourth (15-17).
“We knew T&T would come out stronger in today’s match, after seeing what they were up against in Tuesday’s encounter, and their defence improved a lot,” said assistant coach Reg Sharp. “But our players also beat themselves on a few occasions, by throwing dumb passes and generally not concentrating the way they should.”
Head coach Elize Kotze said the players might have entered the match with too much confidence after their comfortable victory on Tuesday. “That wasn’t intentional, because no team should start a match with the previous results in the back of their minds, but the focus definitely wasn’t on a desired level.” Kotze also expressed dismay at the fact that the team’s greatest weakness was its defence, which is usually their best quality. “They ran straight through us. We’ll definitely have to ask some questions about the reasons for an 11 goal difference in the two winning margins.” The coach did point out that it was tough to play two games in a row, with no real recovery times between two very physical matches, which might explain why they tired so quickly. The third and final match was scheduled to take place yesterday.