NETBALL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ELECTED

Pretoria - The Council of Netball South Africa (NSA) showed faith with the existing executive committee (exco) with just one change for the next two-year term, from 2007 to 2009.

Mimi Mthethwa of Zululand retained her position as President of NSA, with Blanche de la Guerre of Western Province as her vice-president. The only change was the election of Mpumi Javu of Amathole (formerly Border) as Director of Selections, replacing Cecilia Molokwane of Limpopo.

The newly-elected exco has set itself three targets for the coming two years. It aims to expand its sponsorships, review the NSA constitution and examine the performance of the SPAR national team at the recent world championships, with a view to improving the standard of netball in South Africa.

“Although we recently renewed our sponsorship of the national team and the senior national championships with the SPAR Group we need to find a sponsor for the Under-21 team, which is going to the World Championships in 2009, and we also need to find a sponsor for the National Netball League,” said Mthethwa. “It is very important for us to be able to expand the NNL, and take it to more regions. A successful NNL will help us to develop better players throughout the country.

”Mthethwa said it was also important to review and simplify the NSA constitution to make it more accessible to all regions.” I have spoken to the Minister of Sport, and he has agreed to find us a lawyer to help us revise the constitution so that everyone is able to adhere to it. Some of the regions don’t have the right structures in place, so we want to help them to be able to adhere to the constitution.”

She said she had been very disappointed by the national team’s performance at the World Championships in New Zealand earlier this month. South Africa were beaten by Malawi in the play-offs for fifth and sixth places and are now ranked sixth in the world. “We knew Malawi would come hard at us, but we thought we would beat Malawi,” said Mthethwa.

“We believe we need to focus on the mental strength of the team as well as their physical strength. It seems the team starts off very well, but then loses concentration in the third and fourth quarters. So we need to work on that and find ways of developing a winning culture in the team. They need to play for the full hour, not just the first 30 minutes.”

Mthethwa said the exco hoped to have implemented some of the changes by the next Council meeting in March 2008. New NSA executive committee: President, Mimi Mthethwa (Zululand), Vice-President, Blanche de la Guerre (Western Province), Director Demarcations , Mami Diale (North West South), Director Umpires, Hannette Brewer (Free State South), Director Coaches, Bennie Saayman (Boland), Director Selections, Mpumi Javu (Amathole).

This media release was prepared and distributed by BLD Communications on behalf of the SPAR Group Ltd and Netball South Africa. For media queries please contact Marks Mokolobate on 011 662 1889 or email bldgroup@global.co.za