Newly-appointed coach of the Desert Jewels Mary Waya has set her sights on qualifying the Namibian national netball team for the 2023 Netball World Cup to be staged in South Africa.
Waya, a former Malawi national team goal shooter, will be assisted by Antoinne Wentworth, alongside Zimbabwean Lloyd Makunde.
Netball Namibia (NN) on Friday announced the team’s new coaching staff as well as that Malan Elago will stay on as team manager and Maria Mulunga as team doctor in view of the Africa World Cup Qualifiers, set for Pretoria, South Africa, from 22 to 29 August.
Waya, who replaced Sunette Burden as coach, told New Era Sport on Saturday during the team’s training session at the Windhoek Gymnasium she was impressed with the team during their first session a day earlier.
She, however, pointed out “few tactical issues” that they would thoroughly need to work on ahead of the qualifiers.
“The team is good; we just need to do one or two things on tactical and technical, and we also need to increase the intensity of the players as well as their strength,” she said.
In terms of her long-term plans for the team, the founder of Mary Waya Foundation said she plans to successfully qualify Namibia for the upcoming competition.
“We know that on our way to the long-term goal, we have a competition, which is just in front of us. We are climbing this mountain and go on the other side of the mountain.”
“Because we are climbing the mountain, we can face a lot of difficulties, but those challenges are not going to be that hard because it’s our challenges, and we will build on them, which will be based on attacking and defending,” she said.
In terms of knowledge of the players, Waya said she had seen some players at the recent competition in Malawi in June this year as well as the M1 games in Singapore in 2019.
“I know their strengths and weaknesses. I know them from the Pent Series and the Singapore competition, where the Desert Jewels won the M1 Nations Cup,” she added.
Waya has competed in two World Netball Championships (1995 and 2007), three Commonwealth Games (1998, 2006 and 2010) and two World Netball Series (2009 and 2010).
- mkambukwe@nepc.com.na