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the skills and drills from our training session that morning. The pain of defeat was eased when the opposing team hosted us to celebrate their national Heritage Day with a barbeque, or ‘braai’. They taught us some Afrikaans – apparently the food was ‘lekker’! On and off the court, it was a great reminder of what true sportsmanship is.
The following day we were back to our training, reflecting on the previous evening’s match to focus on areas for improvement. We dined out as a team for our evening meal at a traditional restaurant where
we were treated to thirteen courses of South African cuisine, live drumming, Mali puppetry, and dancing to the rhythms of the marimba percussion and djembe drums as our entertainment.
We resumed our training, developing further as a team that had not played together before the tour. We had planned
a trek up Table Mountain, however, due to the busy training and match schedule, we instead enjoyed the view of one of the newly added wonders of the world from a leisurely cable car ride up the mountain. We were too busy playing netball to hike up a mountain
in the heat, honest...... That evening
we played a friendly match against the University of Western Cape who were kind enough to host us after the game. Thursday brought our final training session before
our match against Langa Netball Club. This game had the squad on the edge of their seats, the closest game so far with only a few goals in it!
Friday arrived and after a week jam- packed with netball, a day off was welcomed with open arms. The squad
split into two groups; one group went to Boulders Beach to visit the penguins whilst the remainder who were brave enough went cage diving with great white sharks. The experience was out of this world and most definitely one to cross off the bucket list, with plenty of Instagram-ready photos taken!
The weekend arrived but the coaches hadn’t heard of the words ‘lie’ and ‘in’
with still more netball to come! The AMS had entered two teams into Walker Bay
7s, a South African sports tournament
held annually. An early start was needed
for the long journey to Hermanus on the south-west coast. Although there were lots of different sports to play, such as rugby, dodgeball, and hockey, we stuck to what we
came for..... netball. The tournament was a great way to mix with more local teams and end the tour on a high! Even if some of the squad are now thinking of switching to dodgeball...
After a fun-filled 10 days our time in South Africa came to an end, a country perhaps once divided but certainly unified by netball. We headed back to the UK for final preparations before the Inter-Corps Championships on 17-18 October 2019 where the AMS came 3rd overall, the culmination of a successful tour.
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