Her recent time with the Proteas netball team in Australasia has been invaluable, said Ine-Marí Venter, goal shooter of Tuks.
Even though she didn’t get the opportunity to make her South African debut, it was a good learning curve. The Proteas recently played against New Zealand, Australia, England and Fiji. Venter (22) was back under the goal post for Tuks in their encounter against the University of Johannesburg on Monday in Pretoria.
She played her first match in Varsity Netball 2017 when she took to the court at the start of the third quarter in a match Tuks won 72-30.
“I learned so much just by training with the Proteas and watching their games,” said Venter. “I learned a lot from South Africa’s shooters Lenize (Potgieter) and Maryka (Holtzhausen).”
Venter has played with Potgieter at Tuks, but said the shooter is a far better player after her season in New Zealand. Potgieter played for the Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic in the New Zealand Super League.
“She is so much stronger and not intimidated by defenders.” Venter said that she learned a lot about the speed and physicality of the game at the top level.
“It took me a while to adjust on Monday evening. The speed of play is very different,” said Venter, who is doing her honours in B.Sc Agri Animal Science.
Venter was a star player for the North Gauteng Jaguars in the Brutal Fruit Premier League, which they won in June.
In July she was part of the team that played in an international club tournament in Nelson, New Zealand.
“After that, I went to a training camp and then the national players wasn’t part of the teams that took part in the provincial tournament in Durban,” said Venter. “So Monday night was the first time I got together with my Tuks team mates, but it was easy to get back into the team. It was nice to play with them again.”
She played goal shooter with Rumandi Potgieter on goal attack, and in the last five minutes goal attack.
Tuks are playing host for the Vaal University of Technology on Monday night.
