Staff Reporter.
Spar Proteas coach Norma Plummer is confident that her side will be well and ready when the world descends on the country for the Vitality Netball World Cup.
Cape Town is the host city where 16 countries will be vying for the coveted title of the best netball nation at the tournament that will take place over 10 days.
The Proteas have had several camps leading up to the global showpiece, starting last December ahead of the Quad Series with a few more that happened over the next few months. The last was a two-week training camp at the Stellenbosch Academy of Sport in May.
Plummer and specialist coach Nicole Cusack will return to the country in July after the wrap of the Telkom Netball League where the team will assemble for one last time before the start of the World Cup.
The camp will include training matches against countries that are not in the same group as South Africa in the World Cup.
The World Cup-winning coach says she has been keeping an eye on all the selected players locally and overseas to monitor their performance on the court and is pleased with how most have been performing.
“There’s a couple of younger ones who have dropped to playing what they always do. When they were with us we expanded their game but sometimes when they go back to clubs they drop into what they used to do, instead of creating what they have been shown that could open up their game more. But that’s a hard situation because I don’t know what their coach wants from them, and so it’s not my job to step on the coach of the club. That’s out of order to do that,” says Plummer.
Locally based players have been given extra training programmes to keep at maximum fitness, in order to be ready for the tournament.
She says the TNL has been giving her an insight into how the players are doing on the court.
“I have been watching quite a few of the games. I am very happy with Nicole Taaljaard and also Lefebre (Rademan), KC (Khanyisa Chawane), and also Fifi (Refiloe Nketsa). They have been putting in some really good games. Jeante (Strydom) is just a workhorse, she works all the time. I do get a smile on my face because Phumza Maweni very rarely and never played out of goal defence. She’s doing a marvellous job. I mean she really is, that shows her experience, to be able to pop out there now and start playing a goal defence after all these years of just playing keeper. I’ve been conversing with them all the while to make sure that we are all on track, that is the best you can do from a distance but I have a lot of confidence that these girls want to put on a show for the country. They don’t want to go out there and not put it forward. I have a lot of confidence that we are going to turn up and give this a very good run,” she says.
Having named seven debutants for the tournament, Plummer says she expects the senior players such as Karla Pretorius, who was named Player of the Tournament at the 2019 edition, Bongiwe Msomi, Maweni, and Lenize Potgieter, to guide the younger players on the court when needed. She also expresses that she is satisfied with the players that have been selected in the final 15 for the tournament.
“Her (Pretorius) experience is that she has played with some other younger players in Australia. She is very aware of what that means. The first thing you have to remember, though, is you have to look after your job to start off with. But as the coaching staff we have to work for the team so they understand the game plan around closing up the circle, when to split down the circle, when to go one on one, and when to work into a zone. That is our job to set those plays up so that someone like Karla can call it on court, at the time, if things are not working. If the man-to-man is not working, Karla can call to say ‘let’s split the circle.’
“She can call it on the court before they have to come off because the thing is you need players that can identify change if the opposition starts to get on a roll. Someone like Karla has been around long enough now, she is brilliant as a person in her own right but she’s also very much a team player. She would be in charge of that. I would expect Bongi to do that for the centre court and I would expect Lenize to control what’s going on with goal attack. We teach them how to work things out and when to make the change,” she says.