Van Dyk set her sights on another netball title
Netball coach Jenny van Dyk hopes to repeat her recent success at the Brutal Fruit Challenge when her Tuks netball team compete in this week's USSA tournament.
Winning can become addictive that is why the Tuks netball players were back in training only two days after having helped the Jaguars to win the Brutal Fruit Series recently.
The next challenge is to win the USSA Tournament, which will be presented this week in Bloemfontein.
Tuks head coach, Jenny van Dyk, admits that her team is in for a tough challenge, but she would have it no other way. She makes it clear that she coaches teams to win, not to be runners-up.
With such an attitude it is no surprise that Van Dyk is currently the most successful netball coach in South Africa when it comes to winning local tournaments. Apart from her success with the Jaguars, she was also instrumental last year in helping Gauteng to win the National Championship and Tuks to win Varsity Netball Tournament.
Van Dyk credits her success to the infrastructure that has been created over the last five years at Tuks.
“We got a competitive environment at Tuks. There is never such a thing as an easy session because of the high intensity at which the players train. We got some of the best players pushing each other constantly. I think that is the reason why we had 26 players competing in the Brutal Fruit Series,” Van Dyk explained.
She predicts that the Kovsies, which basically consists of the whole team of the Free State Crinums who finished fourth in the Brutal Fruit tournament, could be the team to beat during the USSA Tournament.
According to Van Dyk the North West University’s Pukke team is also going to be a formidable team as, apart from the goal shooter and goal attack, it will be the Flames team which represented North West in the Brutal Fruit tournament.
“Unfortunately, Erin Burger, Izette Griesel, Shadine van der Merwe, Chanté Louw and Jeante Strydom, who all played for the Jaguars, are not available to play for Tuks for various reasons. Our goal shooter Iné-Mari Venter will also not be available for all the games. Venetia Grobler who was the Baobabs goal shooter will get to play for Tuks,” said Van Dyk.
The successful coach and her Tuks players are in for a hectic time. Apart from the USSA Tournament most of the players will be part of the Jaguars team that will compete in the Super Club Tournament in August in New Zealand. The day after the tournament ends the Varsity Tournament starts.
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