Former Netball Proteas defensive stalwart Maweni focuses on unearthing talent

Out of sight of the bright lights of international netball, former Proteas defensive stalwart Phumza Maweni has embarked on a new journey of developing young talent.

Maweni, an accomplished veteran of three Netball World Cups and 121 caps for South Africa, has turned her attention to coaching since retiring in 2014 after nine years with the senior national team.

She is at the Spar National Championships at Stellenberg High School as assistant coach for home side Cape Town, who are favourites to reach the final on Tuesday.

She has vast knowledge of the game having played in the UK for Loughborough Lightning, Severn Stars and Team Bath; Sunshine Coast Lightning in Australia and Southern Stings in South Africa.

“Defensively we have a few youngsters in our team, they are hungry to learn and I always share information with them,” she said after her side beat eThekwini and Alfred Nzo on Sunday.

“I generalise everything and share with them what I learnt as a player working with the best coaches. They want to grow in netball and I think I am making a good contribution for them to become better players.”

Maweni said it was difficult to transition from being a player to coach.

“It was not an easy one because I enjoyed playing netball, so stepping in as a coach was tough. I used to challenge my coaches and now they [her players] challenge me.

“I am able to deal with it because I learnt different things from different coaches. I am adapting very well. It has been two years now in the environment, and I am enjoying it and doing fairly well so far.

“I am not feeling pressure to produce another player or players like me. I spent most of my career playing internationally and I said to myself that when I stop playing I would share everything I knew with the youngsters in South Africa.

“We played internationally to get all the information and experience from those international coaches and come back home to share. I am doing the same thing in my foundation where I share knowledge with youngsters.”

The Proteas have just returned from the Commonwealth Games where they finished outside the medal places but Maweni said the South Africans have something to work with leading up to the World Cup next year.

We lost by eight points against Australia who are playing in a good league in their country and England also plays in a high level league.

—  Cape Town assistant coach Phumza Maweni

“They did well, we just lost momentum in the last two games against Australia and England. There were silly errors from our side and they cost us.

“We just need to have the mentality of winning the game and believing we can do it. Jamaica showed us it’s possible to defeat Australia. We matched them [Australia], we just need to minimise errors and execute clinical netball.

“We lost by eight points against Australia who are playing in a good league in their country and England also play in a high-level league.

“The girls showed we can compete at that level. They just need to go back and make sure what we can do better to keep the squad as it is until a month before the competition and not cut players earlier.”

At the conclusion of Sunday’s day four of the championships, Tshwane, Mangaung, Johannesburg and Cape Town had guaranteed their places in the semifinals.

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