Clean sweep meets knockout pressure as the Crinums face Jaguars in semifinal

All eyes will be on the Free State Crinums in the final round of the Telkom Netball League. The 2024 champions go into the semifinal round of the competition having had a clean record this season.

The Martha Mosoahle-Samm-led side finished Power Week Two on top of the Division One table after recording 12 victories from the same number of matches. The Crinums will face the Gauteng Jaguars in the first Division One semifinal on Saturday.

The second semifinal between defending champions the Gauteng Golden Fireballs and the Western Cape Southern Stings follows after at the University of Pretoria’s Rembrandt Hall.

The last dance begins on 12 June with playoff matches for Division Two and will run until Monday, 15 June, when the 2026 champions will be crowned.

Mosoahle-Samm understands that there is no room for errors in this last round. She says she anticipates tough encounters throughout

“It’s going to be very tough considering that we are entering a completely new competition, when you’re in you are in. Whatever you have done in the past doesn’t count anymore and I think that is what makes it tougher.

"With the previous games we could still slip up and still be No 1 but now everyone wants to lift the trophy. It is going to be a tough one but we knew from the beginning that it was not going to come easy. We know it is going to be a tough semifinal and an even tougher final,” said Mosoahle-Samm.

The Botswana national team coach says it was important to change how the team did things this year. She says focusing on their own game helped them achieve a 100 per cent record in the league.

“I think it is the manner of approach. When we look at the previous years, we were approaching the game differently. We were more reactive than anything else, then we decided that this year we were going to have to change the strategy, go in hard and dominate as much as we can. I think we have succeeded in that. Just the manner of approach, dominate, be excellent and clinical.

"That is what the Crinums are doing this year, playing a whole different ball game and I think for the first time focusing on us, instead of other teams. Set the records ourselves, setting a standard for every quarter and having to break the entire game into four quarters helped us a lot,” she said.

Jaguars coach, Rozanne Matthyse, is confident that the team can go back to the top again. The record holders last won the league in 2023 leading up to the Netball World Cup in Cape Town. Matthyse believes they know how to handle the pressures of the top four in the league.

“The semifinals and the final are anybody’s game. It’s four teams competing for one medal. It is a new league for us. We have been in this situation in 2023. We struggled in that second week, we took out the Fireballs in the semifinal and we took the trophy.

"We are positive, we have been here before and we know how to handle it. Lots of learning, lots of fixing and we are ready for it,” said Matthyse

Meanwhile, the Tornados will be looking to secure a top finish this season. Having lost only two matches during the campaign, the Lucy Twani-led team will want to finish the season as strongly as it started it.

Their semifinal match against the Free State Sonoblomo will be an acid test for both sides. The Tornados have finished on the podium since 2020, however, the team is hungry to bag the gold medal which has eluded them since then.

After taking the Division Two silver medal last year, goal shooter Rehana Noah says the team is determined to reach another final. However, this time they are aiming to earn promotion to Division One of the league.

“We got so close last year but then we just fell short in the final. Anyone’s goal coming into a tournament is to get the gold, to win the tournament. But we don’t want to stop there, we want to get promoted to Division One because we are strong enough to compete at that level.

"I think it will also give us more experience when we are that side. The experience of playing alongside Spar Protea players and Proteas in the training squad will help us grow,” said Noah.

For Sonoblomo the semifinal is unfamiliar territory. This is the first time the Free State team has finished in the top four of Division Two since joining the league in 2023. The Limpopo Baobabs and the KwaZulu-Natal Kingdom Queens will match up in the other Division Two semifinal game.