SA wallops New Zealand
South Africa has comprehensively won the first three of five games against New Zealand.
Wheelchair Basketball South Africa (WBSA) won the first three of five games against New Zealand.
This means the build-up to next year’s Paralympics is on the right track.
The first game’s score was 95-35. The second game’s score was 87-31 and the Sunday match ended with an 87-38 victory for the SA team.
WBSA’s chief executive officer, Mr Charles Saunders, said beating one of the best teams in the world shows that South Africa is on the right track towards rebuilding, following the exodus of experienced players in 2008.
“After returning from the 2008 Paralympics, many of our players retired. These were players who had more than 100 caps under their belts. As you can imagine, losing such a talent at the same time would leave a hole. It is worse in basketball because we pick our players according to their point classifications. I cannot just pick a player because he is good, he has to have the right points category,” he said.
Mr Saunders said bringing in international coach, Mr Franck Belen, has played a crucial role.
“Franck is a 2010 silver medallist with the France U/23 team. He helped their able-bodied teams place in the top three of the world. This is just one of his achievements. He has been in charge of our development programmes. I can safely say the team we have is the best team since 2008,” said Mr Saunders.
South African coach, Mr Frank Belen, said New Zealand’s visit will help him evaluate the team’s progress.
“No matter how hard you train, if you are competing alone you cannot gauge yourself properly. Even though it’s a friendly game, we have to remember we are still competing against one of the best. It will give us an idea of our team’s capabilities,” he said.
New Zealand is ranked number four in world in the Australia Asia Zone. Australia is ranked number one in the world.
These games were part of the preparations for next year’s Paralympic qualifying games.
South Africa is grouped with Algeria, Nigeria, Morocco, Egypt, Libia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
At the end of the month, South Africa will play against Algeria in a qualifying game.
“We hope to be in the top four in Africa. The gap between us and the leaders in Africa, which is Nigeria, is not that big,” said Mr Saunders.
New Zealand coach, Mr Murray Mickay, commended South Africa.
“Yes we were tired from a 20 hour flight the previous night, but South Africa was the better team,” said Mr Mickay.
