Tigresses have appealed to Southern Region Netball Committee (SRNC) against Southern Region Netball League’s (SRNL) decision to award Prison Sisters three bonus points after the Blantyre-based giants failed to turn up for a Rainbow Paints encounter on Monday.
SRNC chairperson Judith Chalusa has since confirmed receipt of the Tigresses’ complaint.
Tigresses’ coach Peace Chawinga-Kaluwa told MBC Radio 2 FM yesterday that they failed to turn up for the match at the Blantyre Youth Centre (BYC) because they could not assemble their squad after the SRNL delayed to give them a fixture; hence, there was no need to grant their opponents points but reschedule the match.
“We received the fixture on Friday and at that time, we could not gather a team as we had already released our players for the Monday [Kamuzu Day] holiday.
“We feel the awarding of points to Prison is very unfair considering that our expectation was that we would start our games next weekend,” she was quoted as saying.
Tigresses’ appeal comes after their attempt to plead with the SRNL to change their decision failed.
SRNL general secretary Annie Hanjahanja-Billie wondered why only Tigresses had a problem with the fixture.
But Chalusa said they will summon the club and the SRNL to a meeting map the way forward.
“We have received the appeal letter from Tigresses and we will look at ways of resolving the matter amicably,” she said.
The league threw off last Saturday with three matches that saw Serenity Stars stunning Thunder Queens 51-47 as defending champions Kukoma Diamonds and Shizaella Queens thrashed Prison Sisters 76-29 and Polytechnic Sisters 47-24, respectively.
Meanwhile, Tigresses meet Diamonds on Sunday in their second fixture. n
