SPAR Proteas secure hard-fought win over England
- Netball SA
- 36 minutes ago
- 4 min read
The SPAR Proteas struck the first blow in the SPAR Challenge netball series at Ellis Park Arena in the City of Johannesburg on Thursday night, holding their nerve to win the opening Test 52-48.
Playing in front of a home crowd for the first time since 2024, there were a few nerves from the South Africans in the opening minutes. England capitalised to edge into a 7-3 lead. But once the SPAR Proteas had settled, they produced some beautifully slick passages of play. And an impressive defensive display from the likes of eventual Player of the Match Sanmarie Visser and Juanita van Tonder allowed them to quickly make up the deficit and even build up a four-goal lead by the end of the first quarter, which ended 16-12 to the home side.
The starting seven were clearly doing an excellent job for the hosts and South African coach Jenny van Dyk stuck with the same combination for the second quarter, which was far less of a seesaw affair. The SA defence continued to make it difficult for the English as the SPAR Proteas maintained their four-goal cushion to the half-time break (29-25).
Van Dyk made two changes at the start of the third quarter, with Kamogelo Maseko coming on in place of Owethu Ngubane at goal attack and Nicola Smith, playing in her 50th Test, replacing Juanita van Tonder as goalkeeper. The combination took a while to settle and a change on defence from England saw the momentum shifting, allowing the visitors to close the gap and level matters at 31-31, eventually sneaking ahead.
Kyla Dames was brought on at wing attack, with captain Khanyisa Chawane moving to centre, while Van Tonder returned to the goalkeeper position during the third period, which ended with South Africa one goal down (39-38).
The beginning of the fourth quarter brought more changes with Tarle Mathe returning to centre and Ngubane back on at goal attack. And while a few lapses in concentration had the rowdy crowd slightly nervous that the home side were letting things slip, once the South Africans refound their rhythm, they fought their way back in front and then put their foot down to once again, opening up the gap and winning the match 52-48.
“We had great momentum in that first quarter. Second quarter, we stayed in it and we knew after half-time that they were going to come out with a full counter-plan,” said a thrilled Van Dyk afterwards.
Speaking of their dip in the third quarter, she added: “We didn't quite adapt to what they were giving us that well and they came back into the game. It was a game of chess, making quite a lot of changes and making quite a lot of plans but I think the players just stepped up and really showed that they wanted this win, and they battled it out all the way to the end, so that was fantastic.”
Despite the win, SPAR Proteas captain Chawane admitted there was still work to be done.
“I won't say it was the best game that we've ever played but we stayed in it … Our defenders were trying to keep us in that game and we were also making sure that whatever chances we could get, to actually capitalise, we did. I'm happy that we found ourselves in a position where we could actually finish strong.
“That third quarter could have thrown us off and they could have just taken the win, but I think when we saw them coming, we regrouped ourselves and made sure that even those who were coming in were on the same page to finish this game strong.”
Chawane added that the team had played in black armbands to pay respect to the 14 schoolchildren who were recently killed in a tragic road accident.
“We just came out to play for those kids,” she said. “They had all their lives in front of them that they would have loved to live and they didn't get that opportunity because of that accident.
“So (we wanted) to go out there to play our hearts out to show our condolences as well to do our best for them.”
Meanwhile, in the curtain-raiser match earlier in the day at the Ellis Park Arena, South Africa’s men’s netball side went down 69-36 to the visiting Australian invitational team.
The second Test between the SPAR Proteas and England takes place on Saturday at 5pm and the third on Sunday at 4pm.
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