22 Oct 2024

The ongoing Botswana Netball Association (BONA) U-21 development league has been hailed as a positive move aimed at growing the sport from grassroots. 

The league started on Saturday, and the participating BONA affiliates have been divided into four brackets. 

Bracket D matches were played at the BONA courts in Gaborone where BOPA interviewed some of the participating teams to get their views on the development programme. 

Zenzo Majinyo, a trainee coach at Thamaga Jaspers said most of the participating players were being introduced to competitive play as only a few have been part of the senior team. 

Majinyo said lack of school sports has been a setback in developing young netball players. 

She said most of the players, though playing at club level, were learning the sport from scratch, therefore making it slow to establish a formidable team. 

Therefore, she said the youth development league is a bonus that will go a long way in growing netball. 

Majinyo said her team has been working hard to develop young players. “So far, we have about 25 players who are under the age of 21,” she said. 

Abednico Chitelo of University of Botswana (UB) Crystals said the team was able to have enough young players participate as the team has been using young players in the league. 

Chitelo said focusing on youth development gave them an advantage as they now have a pool of players who will participate in the U-21 league. 

He said the move is positive, as it would encourage all the netball clubs to focus on youth development. 

Chitelo said they have own development, and at times got the luck of getting students who have the background of the game, while some developed interest while at UB.

He said even though the league has just started, his players were able to execute what they have learnt in training. 

Martin Gosalamang, team manager at Vipers said most of the players are new to the competitive stage, and some were overwhelmed by panic whenever they do something wrong and taking long to regroup. 

Gosalamang said the team has played well and would gradually adapt to the stage. 

He said it was not easy to identify young players since school sport, which used to act as their development, has been halted for some years. 

Also, said school sport was the feeder of the national league, therefore for clubs to get young players is not easy. 

Gosalamang said they get most of their young players from colleges and universities. 

However, he said even though some of them had played netball at primary schools, there was no activity at junior and secondary school, therefore their development was curtailed and are now starting from scratch. 

Even though appreciating the league, Gosalamang said the time that was given for the teams to prepare was not enough and he is hopeful that the players would acquire the much-needed skills during the course of the tournament.

“I feel organising the tournament was a good move, as we are going back to development, which is the root of any sporting activity. 

The players who have been there for some time are now aging and if we do not focus on development, eventually we will not have the league as there will be no players to participate,” he said. 

Thato Sekokonyane, assistant coach at Notwane said the tournament was a good initiative as it was meant to grow the sport.

Sekokonyane said he also has an academy, which is also doing well in developing youthful players. 

“I am pleased that I have been given an opportunity to engage in youth development as a coach. 

We are hopeful as this is a positive move towards development even though the time that we were given to prepare for the league was too short,” he said. 

He said the first day of the league has more positives, a sign that it will progress well. 

Sekokonyane also said working together, the league would achieve the desired results. 

He added that he is proud of the girls, as the team has responded well. However, he said they face a challenge of securing training grounds. Ends