Tuks and North West reaches the finals

University of Pretoria, Tuks and the North West University (NWU) netball teams have reached the finals of the Varsity Netball.

UP-Tuks used the two power plays exceptionally well by soundly beating the Maties 74-43 at the Rembrandt Hall on October 2, booking their place in the 2017 Varsity Netball final.

NWU is through to a third consecutive final and fourth in the five years of Varsity Netball with a comprehensive 53-37 victory over the Kovsies in Bloemfontein.

The students from Potchefstroom will face UP-Tuks in Pretoria on October 9 in a repeat of 2016 final.

The Tuks coaching team must have pressed the right buttons throughout the game and after the interval as their charges came out firing, quickly scoring four goals to open up the biggest gap of the match. For every goal the Maties scored Tuks responded by scoring two and when the power play was called the Tuks raced out to a 31-21 lead. The trend of two Tuks goals for each one by Maties continued and the hosts went into the break leading 35-23.

Tuks were first to score yet again after halftime and they kept the scoreboard pressure on the Maties by scoring regularly and frustrating the Maties attackers. The second power play was called and while Maties did better than the first one, the damage had been done and at 48-30 the victory was all but assured. Tuks outscored Maties 20 to 13 in the third quarter and at 55-36 the result was a foregone conclusion.

Tuks, along with NWU, have played in every Varsity Netball semi-final to date and they showed why they are favourites to claim that elusive title this year. They kept the foot firmly on the accelerator and scored another 19 goals to the seven of the Maties and the match became the highest scoring semi-final in competition history. The final score of 74-43 and goal total of 117 eclipsed the 2014 result of 68-46 which had seen 114 goals scored and is a testament to the tempo at which the Tuks played.

The experience of Ine-Mari Venter was evident and the goal-shooter showed that she is very close to earning her national colours by collecting the FNB Player of the Match award, while her teammate and goal-attack Rumandi Potgieter claimed the Samsung Best Shot Award.

In the match between NWU and Kovsies, they often call the third quarter as the 15 minutes where matches get decided. This was the case with the winning team stretching out to a massive 12 goal lead (38-26) by the end of the third quarter after the scores were still level 20-all at halftime. That was thanks to a productive power play where they scored four points to the zero of the Kovsies.

But overall the visitors made far fewer errors and intercepted a number of the passes to frustrate the home side.

As the game progressed the large and vibrant crowd in the Callie Human Hall in Bloemfontein became less of a factor and much quieter. The first half was a ding-dong affair with the biggest goal difference being the 19-16 lead Kovsies built up that was quickly erased.

Both coaches had a plan or two up their sleeves. Burta de Kock (Kovsies) played Alicia Puren at goalkeeper after she had played goal shooter the whole series. Dorette Badenhorst (NWU) called on the services of Protea Sigi Burger at goal shooter in the third and fourth quarter and she made the required impact.

The news earlier from the NWU camp was that Burger wouldn’t play for them this year as she hasn’t recovered sufficiently from her injury. Zandré Erasmus, the goalkeeper of NWU, earned yet another FNB Player of the Match award which was richly deserved. She had a brilliant performance and gave the Kovsies shooters nightmares.

By the time the Kovsies called their power play with eight minutes remaining, the match was already over as a contest with the winning team opening a 44-30 lead at that stage.

NWU overall was more composed when things heated up in comparison to the Kovsies who often made silly errors under pressure.

FNB Player of the Match: Zandré Erasmus (NWU)

Samsung Best Shot Award: Jessica du Plessis (NWU)

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