Johannesburg — South African national netball team player Ine-Mari Venter subscribes to the adage ‘to be the best, you have to beat the best’, and for that reason the goal-shooter has no worries about who the SPAR Proteas get drawn against for the 2023 World Cup.
“No matter who is coming up against us or who is being drawn into our group, we can’t really ask for anyone,” Venter said as she looked ahead to the official draw taking place in East London on Wednesday evening.
South Africa will host the global tournament to be contested by 16 countries from July 28 — August 6 at the International Convention Centre in Cape Town.
“Obviously if you want to be the best, you have to beat the best. Everybody is tough competition, no matter where you are in the world rankings.”
The Proteas are ranked fifth in the world and could will thus have one of the top four — world champs New Zealand, world No 1 Australia, as well as third-placed England or possibly fourth-placed Jamaica in their group.
Semi-finalists at the previous tournament hosted by Liverpool in 2019, Netball South Africa are keen to see the Proteas improve on their fourth-place finish and have brought back revered Australian coach Norma Plummer to lead the side.
Venter says Plummer’s return is great for the team: “Definitely, having Norma coming back as coach has set a standard. She has always had a standard and we know from the 2019 World Cup how she operates. She set us what she wanted for the (SPAR) Diamond Challenge which we won and it was a good foundation-building phase. It’s exciting times for us.”
Just about everyone associated with the Proteas has commented on how different the team was during the Diamond Challenge to the one that participated at the Commonwealth Games recently.
Venter says while Plummer should be credited with the improved team spirit and rise in confidence, the players themselves were largely responsible for the turn-around.
“Yes our confidence has grown a lot and our connection is better. But after the Commonwealth, every player needed to make a change within. Every person has showed and excelled within the team because we want to do better. The World Cup is coming and we want to make our country and ourselves proud. Yes Norma being here makes a huge difference, but we as players want to do well too.”
The countries that will go into Wednesday night’s draw are South Africa, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Uganda, New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, Tonga, England, Wales, Scotland, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Sri Lanka and Singapore.
The teams will be divided into four groups of four with the top two teams progressing to the knockout stages.
IOL Sport