Wrap: Proteas finish World Cup in sixth

South Africa finished in sixth place after they were defeated 49-47 by Uganda while Malawi beat Tonga 64-54 to finish in seventh place in the netball World Cup action on Sunday.

South Africa 47-49 Uganda

The Uganda Women’s National Netball Team surprised the team that hosted the 2023 Netball World Cup, South Africa, by coming in fifth.

Even though South Africa beat the She Cranes in the preliminaries and at the 2019 World Cup in Liverpool, they beat the odds and won 49-47.

It’s the best finish Uganda has ever had at the World Cup, and the eighth-ranked country will move up in the rankings when the new ones come out.

The She Cranes tied for 13th on their first race in Trinidad and Tobago. In 2015, they came in 8th in Australia, and in 2019, they came in 7th in England.

Mary Nuba scored 29 goals, and Irene Eyalu and Shadiah Nassanga each scored 10 goals.

Margret Baagala, who didn’t play in the earlier loss to South Africa, had 21 assists in another hard-working game, and she was taken off unconscious after the final whistle.

The SPAR Proteas were led by Elmeré van der Berg, who scored 36 goals, and Nichole Taljaard, who scored 11 goals.

Malawi 64-54 Tonga

Malawi beat Tonga for the second time in three days to finish seventh at the Netball World Cup 2023 in Cape Town.

After beating the Tala’s 56-51 on Thursday, the Queens beat them again 64-54 on Sunday.

In this high-stakes game, it was Tonga who started things off. Centre Hulita Veve made her presence known right away with just a few tip touches. She was competing against Malawi’s Takondwa Lwazi, who had been doing well in Cape Town.

Midway through the first 15 minutes, Tonga had a three-goal lead because their players made space for the ball to go into their goal circle. At the other end of the court, Kelea Iongi and Lose Fainga’anuku were making life hard for the Malawi shooters.

Malawi came back with a strong counterattack. Joyce Mvula and Mwai Kumwenda scored on their chances, and then the Queens tied the game and put their team up by two goals. Malawi was ahead 17-16 when the teams took their first break.

At the start of the second quarter, the only team that changed their starting lineup was Tonga. Salote Taufa moved to centre and Mo’onia Gerrard moved to goal defence.

At the beginning of the second quarter, Malawi sped up the game a lot. Mvula moved out of the circle more so that her attacking players could pass to her. It was sometimes risky, though, because Tonga’s hands sometimes got in the way.

Most of the time, Malawi had the ball, and it showed on the scoreboard. It took the Queens eight minutes to get a comfortable lead of five goals, as their shooters only missed two shots between them.

Just before the end of the second quarter, Malawi made their first change. Jane Dambo took the place of Grace Mwafulirwa on the wing defence. It made the Tongan attack even more difficult, and the Queens led 33–29 at halftime.

In the third quarter, Lwazi and Veve kept going at it in the middle. Throughout the tournament, both have been standout players for their teams, both on offence and defence.

Tonga started closing the gap to just one goal after seven minutes of the second-to-last quarter of the game. They did this by playing with more structure and also doing a better job on defence. In the third quarter, the Tala scored more points than the Queens, 15 to 12, which kept their hopes of an important win alive.

In the fourth quarter, the Malawi team didn’t change much because the coaches stuck with what had been working well so far.

In the last seven minutes of the game, Malawi got more of the ball and started pulling away. With only two minutes left, they had a ten-goal lead and a guaranteed seventh place at the World Cup in Cape Town.