* Spurred on by Banyana Banyana beating Italy to advance to the round of 16 in the Soccer World Cup
* Jamaica need to beat New Zealand for the Proteas to have any chance to advance to the semifinal
* While the hosts need to navigate their way past Uganda
SuperSport & Maravi Express
Malawi’s arch rivals, South Africa nearly caused the biggest upset at the Netball World Cup 2023 on Wednesday when they drew 48-all against world champions New Zealand in a Pool G match at a packed CTICC in Cape Town.
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Spurred on by Banyana Banyana beating Italy to advance to the round of 16 in the Soccer World Cup, for the Proteas South Africa to have any chance to advance to the semifinal, Jamaica need to beat New Zealand on Thursday while the Proteas need to navigate their way past Uganda.
In the final minutes before the end of the first quarter South Africa put up a massive defensive effort to come back from a four-goal deficit to go into the break only one down (10-11), in what must have been one of the lowest scores in the first 15 minutes of any match at the World Cup.
A couple of questionable umpire calls edged New Zealand 26-21 at halftime but South Africa produced an outstanding performance in the third quarter, winning it 13-12 to only be four goals adrift and keeping their hopes alive of recording only their second victory ever over New Zealand.
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The final 15 minutes of the thrilling match saw the Proteas throw everything at the Silver Ferns and with four minutes left on the clock, they needed three goals to create history and the atmosphere at the CTICC reached fever pitch.
The Proteas road the wave of overwhelming support and with three seconds left, Taljaard safely landed in what was probably the most important goal of her test career so far, the final score 48-all.
On Tuesday, Malawi Queens nearly produce an upset against Australia but they survived the huge scare to scrape through with a 70-46 win in their toughest test yet at the Netball World Cup being hosted by South Africa.
The Diamonds had dominated their opening three matches against Zimbabwe, Tonga and Fiji but the competition stepped up a notch against Malawi.
Australia looked like they was taking control of the game, opening up a six goal lead in the first quarter before World No. 6 Malawi fought back when they turned over plenty of ball and were unpredictable in attack, surging back to briefly take the lead before the score was levelled 28-28 at halftime.
But an injury by playmaker Takondwa Lwazi in the 3rd quarter and that disturbed coach Sam Kanyenda’s game plan and in an interview with MBC’s sports journalist, Frank Kandu in Pretoria, Kanyenda said he had to make unprepared substitution which he confessed was not good enough as he didn’t anticipate Lwazi misfortune.
“The substitution was not good enough to sustain the consistency of the game,” he said, while applauding his charges for their sublime performance against such a top class Australian side — ahead of match against Tonga today.
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