Sunbirds excel to earn promotion

Renewed vigour and determination to win recently paid off for the Mpumalanga Sunbirds. The provincial netball team were promoted to the first division of the premier league, the Brutal Fruit Netball Cup in May.

The country’s first semi-professional league was only launched last year. It features 10 teams from the nine provinces. This year the local team still played in the second division of the five-week tournament. The Sunbirds’ captain Thembisile Mdluli (29) said the promotion signals a great improvement.

“Last year we didn’t even win one match, and this year we made it to the semi-finals.”

A change in management contributed to their success, as did a more uniform fitness regime as prescribed by new coach Jenny-Lee Delport. The players follow this on their own when they are not training together as a team, and as a result all the players are more fit than last season.

“We returned this year to prove that we can win,” Mdluli tells Lowvelder.

The promotion also comes with the promise of additional sponsorship. At the moment Netball South Africa sources funding for teams’ clothes, transport and accommodation during tournaments. Players also get paid for games. But Mdluli has had to keep her day job as an office assistant for the provincial department of culture, sport and recreation.

She has been playing netball since primary school, and never stopped even after matriculating from Khutelani High School in KaBokweni. The goal and wing defender still plays for KaBokweni Netball Club as only club-affiliated players may participate in trials for provincial or regional teams.

But she agrees that local sports clubs lose many members when young players leave school.

“Learners who leave for varsity or stop going to school tend to stop playing. KaBokweni’s club is still big. We have about 200 players and can make up five or six teams.”

Mdluli loves netball. “It keeps me busy and focused. It keeps me away from bad things that happen to girls.”

But in her view the sport is not being taken seriously enough, especially in comparison with rugby and soccer. Yet the establishment of the Brutal Fruit Netball Cup may be an indication that things are changing.

As the team captain Mdluli is the main motivator too. She says the pressure is a challenge. “Everyone is looking up to you, but sometimes you are also distracted and don’t know what to say.”

Yet she would recommend the sport to young girls. “We are lacking in development. It keeps you fit and out of trouble.”

Like any player, she dreams of making it on to the SPAR Proteas national team. Mdluli also hopes to continue her career in netball as an upper-level coach. “One day I want to coach the Sunbirds.”

But first the senior national championships await in Durban in August. “And the Sunbirds are going to win,” she says.