With a hint of excitement crackling in the air, the 2018 Varsity Netball season is set to be an exhilarating one as the University of Johannesburg prepare to meet NWU on Sunday afternoon at the Callie Human Hall in Bloemfontein.
The Auckland Park side, who struggled in their campaign last spell, have a massive challenge ahead of them as they head into the first round of competition. UJ, who have faced a change in team members, will also be led by Roelize Venter-Mors as the new 2018 head coach. The passionate trainer has led the team through the USSA’s in their bid to dominate this year’s games and has stated that they are approaching all of their games this weekend with a certain amount of vigour.
“I just think we need to focus on our game plan against NWU and make sure that we utilize and implement the strategy we developed over the last few weeks. It’s also important for us to build on our centre passes as we need to make every centre pass count and we need use each turn over to our advantage.”
Venter-Mors further mentioned her expectations of the season, stating that she wants to take it game by game.
“Our expectations as a team are baby steps, we want to focus on every game and we don’t want to plan ahead and think about the next two to three weekend fixtures. We are only thinking about Sunday’s game and then after, we will come together and go into the next game. I think last season, our main issue was that we focused on a big, overall plan and now we are going to focus on taking baby steps moving forward.”
2018 UJ captain Halala Nxumalo said it is difficult to face NWU in the first round, however, they remain optimistic that anything is impossible.
“We need to remember that they are just twelve girls and so are we and the nice thing [about the game] is that we all start on 0-0. They don’t have any advantage over us and neither do we. I really think it all depends on the mindset and which team is more prepared for the clash. We are not scared of the big names because we are just as talented and ready for what awaits us this bumper weekend.”
Catch all the live action on SuperSport 10 at 19h00 as UJ face Kovsies on Monday night in the second round of the prestigious tournament.
By Liziwe Mbha
