UJ netball captain Halala Nxumalo still has hope that her troops can bounce back from their weekend’s fixtures after losing 59-25 and 62-31 to NWU-Puk and UFS-Kovsies respectfully in the first round of the 2017 Varsity Netball season.
The Auckland Park team suffered a knock in their plans for a top four finish as their losses put them on the back foot of achieving their goal. This adds a great amount of pressure for the university side as they will have to gain maximum points for each of their remaining games.
Nxumalo said they were disappointed returning back to Johannesburg without a win but give credit to their Varsity Netball counterparts.
“Sometimes we have to acknowledge your opponents, they came prepared,” said Nxumalo. “We have to applaud them, they really had a great game. I’m not sure why but we were either a little frightened or too excited but we will be going back to the drawing board and we are looking forward to next weekend’s game. We just want to start afresh and forget about the last two games.”
The wing-defence player shares the team’s objectives for the upcoming season.
“Finishing sixth last year has put us under tremendous pressure as there will always be pressure on us competing against other universities, but looking forward to this year, we are approaching things on a clean slate and we are aiming to work hard.”
Nxumalo adds they will be marching forward in their quest to get on the scoreboard and earn some points.
“Although last weekend wasn’t exactly what we hoped for, we have just decided to forget about the last two games. Obviously it’s something hard to do, but as a team going forward and wanting to win the whole tournament, we just going to have to forget about our bad games and focus on what’s to come.”
By Liziwe Mbha
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