After going down 56-33 to a strong Kovsies team, Maties will look to consolidate their fifth position on the standings against UP-Tuks on Sunday.
The difference in experience and temperament was clearly illustrated when the Kovsies opened a massive 32-8 lead after electing to use the Samsung Powerplay.
Maties battled back during the last quarter but could not narrow the gap sufficiently to collect any extras. What was interesting was when Kovsies replaced their senior players with younger ones; Maties won the quarter by far.
With an age limit coming into effect during 2014, Maties will retain most of their current playing squad and this year will serve as an excellent learning experience for the players.
In the current squad Lizanne Visser, Lou-Ann Nagel and Akile Khoza are all first years. Anne Uys, Almari Liebenberg and Melandi Pretorius are second years with captain Juline Rossouw, along with Haike Brink and Sune Claassens, being third years.
This bodes extremely well going forward and the team will be battle-hardened after this year’s campaign.
The result in Bloemfontein unfortunately meant that Maties stayed on 14 log points with Tukkies, their opponents in the final round, collecting five log points in their 68-28 trouncing of UCT.
The gap of six log points cannot be closed and Maties will also have to keep an eye out for UJ possible overtaking them on the standings. UJ play TUT and will look to collect the maximum and possibly end on 16 log points.
The match is one of four being played on Sunday, and Maties will bank on their supporters once again. The first match of the afternoon is at 15:00 with Maties and Tukkies scheduled to start at 19:30 in the DF Malan Indoor Centre.
The games are all being televised Supersport Channel 229, but the best option is to catch the action live and be part of what is surely going to be yet another explosive round of matches.
By Dorfling Terblanche
