#throwbackthursday to South Africa Tour 2016

So, after just over two weeks of being home, it’s time to reflect on the invaluable experiences which we had during our South Africa tour, on and off the netball court.

Where to begin?

The staff and volunteers at Netball South Africa were extremely warm and helpful for the duration of our time there, and for this we are truly thankful. Special mentions go to Portia and Kiki, our liaisons. It was a real pleasure to meet Bruce our PR Leader, and we hope he will come and visit us in Wales. The SA netball team made us feel at home. It was great to socialise with them on the Opening Night and to share this experience alongside them. We wish them well in their upcoming quad series.

The people of Durban welcomed us into their beautiful city with open arms. We couldn’t have asked to stay at a better hotel. Their staff were friendly, Pete the chef looked after us exceptionally well, and what’s more the views from our rooms were breath-taking. Watching the sunrise on our last morning was definitely one of the many highlights from the trip.

We have taken many important lessons and experiences from the tour. We learned pretty quickly that Wales is very much closing the gap on the top five world ranked nations.

The progress between tests 1 and 3 shows that when given these opportunities – we develop, learn and can compete with these nations.

This reinforces how the hard work is worthwhile, and we still have more to give. We gained valuable experiences off the court, too. When faced with adversity, we came together as one and explored new levels of our friendships. Without a doubt, we are a tighter team after this tour than ever before – and this is one key component to future success.

(Photo credit: Reg Caldecott)

We’re very grateful for all the hard work that went on behind the scenes before, during and after the tour to make it such a fantastic experience. Our management team in particular were amazing as always, as well as the staff back home who were involved in ensuring our journey was as smooth as possible.