20 Dec 2022

Botswana senior netball team, Dinaledi is now ranked 24th in the World Netball Rankings following its exceptional performance at the just ended Asia Nations Cup, which was held in Singapore.

Dinaledi, which was ranked 31st, before, has moved seven places up.

Botswana Netball Association (BONA) spokesperson, Mokereste Mokereste said in an interview that the team’s win in Singapore was just what they had been working hard for.

“We are glad it had a significant impact on our position in World Netball Rankings,” he said adding that the positive move in rankings did not come as surprise.

Mokereste said winning the championship after a very long time had shown that hardwork and perseverance were key.

“You don’t just win because you have talent.

Winning calls for a holistic approach which requires better planning and better approach not a quick fix winning mentality that ends up destroying what we want to build for the future,” he said.

He said the association had realised that sustainable programmes that instil a winning culture in sport development and the success of all their national teams, were critical.

As such, he said they had since resolved to have sustainable activities that would keep all their structures and players active at all times.

This year, Mokereste said they have had a number of activities, which kept players on court, adding they also had the return back to play.

Also, he said they introduced the first edition of BONA FAST 5 Netball Tournament that helped players with speed and endurance adding that the Fast 5 netball was different from the normal 7-aside netball game.

He said they also had the National Netball League that brought back life to netball and thanked Lucara Botswana for saving them and bringing hope to netball.

In addition, he said they also had the national team preparations for the World Qualifiers that brought in Jenny Van Dyk, after Botswana was chosen by Netball South Africa to be part of the Netball World Cup Legacy.

This, he said brought in excitement at all levels of development for BONA, adding that Van Dyk was a well experienced and decorated coach and her working relationship with the local club coaches, assistant coaches at the national team and the players has brought transformation to netball.

“We had continuous camps and weekend training camps to get the team ready for Netball World Cup Qualifiers.

After qualifiers, the team was kept active in preparation for Nations Cup,” he said.

Furthermore, he said national team players had a continuous training programme given by Van Dyk and players had to strictly follow without fail.

“Giving each player feedback helped them to put more effort to ensure that the national team is ready for international games. The Singapore success was a process not a quick fix,” he said.

He said development of coaches in Botswana was also paying dividends as evidenced by the national team performance.

In 2021, he said over 100 coaches did an online coaching course on basic fundamentals on coaching which ran for three months.

In September, he said they also had course through the legacy programme, which had over 30 graduates and last month, they had Level 1 coaching course and 14 graduates.

Mokereste said he was confident that players across all structures were mostly trained and coached by competent trained coaches.

“The importance of being well prepared before going into competition must never be underestimated. It’s not only the leadership that prepares, players also have to continue to do their part,” he said. ENDS