SA taunts Malawi Queens

A top South Africa national netball team official has taunted Malawi Queens ahead of the two teams’ meeting in April at Dubai Quad Series and the July Commonwealth Games in Scotland.

Netball South Africa (NSA) director (selection) Christine du Preez is quoted as telling www.mysport24.co.za that the Queens are a spent force having beaten them three times on the trot.

“This will be excellent preparation for the games. England are ranked third, Jamaica fourth and Malawi fifth in the world, and we need to beat them to have a chance of claiming a medal,” du Preez said on Monday.

“We have beaten all of them in the past. In fact, we have beaten Malawi three times in a row —and this Quad Series will give us another opportunity to test ourselves against them. We know we can beat them all-we have done it before, and so we will approach the Quad Series with a very positive attitude.”

The South Africans believe they have made enough progress since the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi to be in a position to challenge for a medal. Malawi beat South Africa at the 2010 Games.

But since that time, the Queens have been playing second fiddle to the Proteas who snatched the African Netball Championship which Malawi hosted last year. The South Africans went on to defeat Malawi at the Fast5 Series in New Zealand in 2013.

Netball Association of Malawi general secretary Carol Bapu said they will not allow Malawi to lose to SA again as that might affect the Queens’ standing on world rankings.