Uganda stun South Africa to secure fifth spot in Netball World Cup

Netball World Cup 2023 hosts South Africa played Uganda in an all-African showdown for fifth place on Sunday, where the She Cranes dethroned the South Africans as the top side in Africa to secure fifth spot with a 49-47 victory.

Coming into the match, Uganda were already guaranteed their highest finish at a Netball World Cup – their previous best being seventh place in 2019.

A thrilled Ugandan coach, Fred Mugerwa, said: “The match went the way we wanted it to go. When we went into that match, my last words to the players were that we shouldn’t make the mistakes we made in the first match we played against South Africa because we gave them a lot of respect and because of that, they went ahead by many goals.

“When we tried to catch up those goals, which we did, by the fourth quarter we were very tired and could not go beyond. So this time I told them we should start on a very high note and that’s where we should end and today, the game would not be over until it was over with the final whistle. Indeed this is exactly what they did and we eventually won, so I’m very pleased with my girls that they listened to the instructions.”

She Cranes captain Irene Eyaru added: “On behalf of the team, I’m so, so proud because we have been looking for a way of beating South Africa right from the word go. We wanted to show the whole world that Uganda is the best team in Africa… we decided to play our hearts out on court.”

South African coach Norma Plummer said: “Congratulations to Uganda. They kept possession of the ball, unfortunately, we wasted too many balls and you can’t afford to lose those sorts of balls. The game is possession and that’s where you win it. They took it to us, and they deserve the win in the end.”

Captain Bongi Msomi added: “We obviously wanted to win, it was very important to try and give it our best shot and maintain our ranking. Like Norma said, we just gave away too many balls. Kudos to them, they played really well today. I’m disappointed obviously, I still need to go back and try and feel this, at this point, I don’t even know what to feel.”

Vice-captain Karla Pretorius said: “I’m just very disappointed with our result, but it comes back to ourselves, we didn’t play the way were supposed to. They just put us under a lot of pressure and against a team like this, you don’t win a lot of balls and you need to capitalise on it, and we did not do that today. So it’s really disappointing, we really wanted that win.”

Cape Times