27 Jul 2016

Botswana Under 21 national netball head coach, Setshedi Botlhole-Mmopi says she is happy with the team’s progress at the ongoing Netball World Youth Cup Africa qualifiers held at the UB indoor sports arena. 

Botswana resuscitated their performance in the qualifiers with a win yesterday against Namibia with a score line of 49-36 after losing to Zambia and South Africa in the previous games. 

Botlhole-Mmopi said even though they did not expect a loss against Zambia which according to her was an easy clash, her players performed well.

She expressed her delight on how her player’s performance and progress despite the fact that most of them were making national team debuts.

“I am more focused on the development of the team, therefore I could say am happy with some players’ progress in the team,” she said

She pointed out that her goal shooter (GS), Cheludo David has grown over the last four games played so far despite that she was making her debut for the national team.

She said David possess a lot of qualities needed for her role as a GS.

Botlhole-Mmopi also said they fielded a new team for the qualifiers adding that the plan was to give the newbies a go as part of the preparations and team building for the 2017 World Youth Cup.

She said they had in place a programme which they adhere to in order to prepare for next year’s world cup, which Botswana has already qualified for by virtue of being the hosts. 

She explained that they had excluded the regular first team players from taking part in the qualifiers. 

She said regulars were  seasoned players and were aware of their strengths.

Botlhole-Mmopi revealed that their strategy had paid off since the likes of David had shown that they would be able to represent the country at the prestigious event next year.

Regarding the performance at the ongoing qualifiers, which Botswana have had two losses and two wins, she expressed confidence that the players would do better since they had shown great progress.

Botlhole-Mmopi said going into their clash with Namibia, she knew their opponents were good with defence.

Therefore, she said their strategy was to find ways to bypass their defence. Thus, she said they needed a goal attacker who could collect balls from deep inside their quarter and at the same time attack into opponents’ last quarter. She said Pearl Maribe managed to do exactly that, which them a win.

Meanwhile, earlier on the day Lesotho’s woes worsened as they lost yet again against Zambia with 11-56, while Zimbabwe beat Malawi 52-23. Ends