A division one encounter between the North West Flames and the Southern Stings got day two of the Telkom Netball League third leg underway this morning at the Heartfelt Arena in Pretoria. The Stings were without key player- Nicola Smith who has been rested for this weekend but that didn’t deter the team from sealing a comfortable 69-49 victory. The Flames put up a good fight in the first half to trail by just seven goals but they were unable to keep up with the masterful performance that the Stings were dishing out. The Flames remain winless after six games while the Stings moved one spot up to third on the log.
Game two, saw the Eastern Cape Aloes do what they do best and maintaining their form to secure a 46-30 win. The Queens have conceded ninety-one goals in two matches and have only managed to score just sixty. Their last victory was in April during Power Week in Durban where they won by just one goal in front of their home crowd. Aloes’ coach- Sameisha Esau says this is the perfect time to rest some of her influential players.
‘’This is what I will be doing going forward, I will be resting most of my players. Siphosethu Kilani is one of my players that is resting this weekend but she will be back next weekend. Tomorrow, we play Diamonds and I would like to rest most of my starting players going forward in the competition’’.
The Limpopo Baobabs made a couple of surprise changes, taking off Goal Shooter- Muhluri Hlatshwayo in the final quarter and slotting in usual Goal Keeper- Nthabiseng Mothutsi on the GS position but that still didn’t affect their full game solid performance which produced a 50-39 win. This might have been a disappointing result for the Eastern Cape Comets who came from two back to back wins but they will certainly pride themselves in the character shown on court.
The Diamonds made coach- Chairmain Vd Linde very emotional following their perpetual fighting spirit against the Western Cape Tornados this afternoon. Chairmain relied on the same starting seven to carry out the task, which they handled pretty well despite the 46-38 defeat.
Tornados coach- Danlee Mathews believes her players can give her more than what they giving her already, ‘’Definitely not clinical enough today. We played twenty seconds of very good netball and then we went back to our old habits. I’ll take the win even though I’m not entirely happy with the win but I am happy that we can learn from the good things we did and just build on that for tomorrow’s match against the Baobabs’’.
The Kingdom Stars and Fireballs match concluded match day eleven at the Heartfelt Arena in Pretoria. A tightly contested first half saw both teams secure six intercepts apiece however, the Stars made twenty-two turnovers and the Fireballs twenty-one but it was the Gauteng side who made more conversions to lead 21-15 at half-time. The Fireballs vehemently wanted to get the job done and shut down the Stars’ attacking efforts to restrict them to just five goals in the championship quarter and continued their form throughout to beat the KZN side 49-28.
‘’We had a much better start than the previous game so I’m very positive about that. We need to be able to do that for four quarters, so if the combination works, it has to be able to work for four quarters. To be very honest, I think some of the players aren’t fit enough to do that, fitness did come into play because the combinations really did work. I was forced to make a few changes, changes that I made that I was certain they would work but didn’t. That’s on me not on the players’’, Stars coach- Marguerite Rootman said after the game.
Full results:
Flames 49-69 Stings
Aloes 46-30 Queens
Comets 39-50 Baobabs
Tornados 46-38 Diamonds
Stars 28-49 Fireballs
Sunday (29/05/2022) fixtures:
Diamonds vs Aloes
Tornados vs Baobabs
