The Jaguars possibly made local sports history on Sunday when they won the Brutal Fruit Tournament by becoming the first team to not one lose one game throughout the entire event.
The team, which is an all Tuks team, is, in reality, unbeaten in 18 Brutal Fruit games as last year they won their previous eight games on the trot. In Sunday’s final played at Tuks, they prevailed in a real humdinger against the Southern Stings to win 49-47.
There cannot be any arguing anymore that Jenny van Dyk (Tuks head coach) is one of the best coaches in South Africa at the moment. Not only has she coached the Jaguars to two consecutive titles in the Brutal Fruit Series. Last year she was instrumental in helping Gauteng to win the National Championship and Tuks to win Varsity Netball Tournament.
Shadine van der Merwe (Jaguars and Tuks captain) has no hesitation in calling Van Dyk a brilliant strategist.
“To bring on changes during a game is always risky but Jenny has got a real feel for the game. That led to her being able to constantly make the right decision at the right time during Sunday's final,” said Van der Merwe who was also benched for some time.
She is of the opinion that the final was a good advertisement for South African netball.
“It was a fast game, with not one team giving an inch. The fact that the game got quite physical at times was proving of the passion with which everyone played.”
Van Dyk applauds her players and coaching staff.
“As a coach, you can make any decision you want, but if the players do not buy into it, it is bound to fail. On Sunday every time I made changes to the team the players were 100% committed to making it work. I would say that made the real difference in the end."
Tshina Madau, who got the player of the match award, ascribed the Jaguars success to the fact that they were able to keep their cool for the duration of the game.
“Towards the end when we were truly under pressure, we realised that there is only one option left, and that was to get back to the basics."
Pure passion and pride was another reason why the Jaguars was able to defend the title.
Iné-Mari Venter (goal shooter) admits to not being at her best during the first two-quarters of the game.
“It was my teammates that prevented me from panicking. When I watched the passion with which they kept on playing it made me realise it is not about me, it is all about the team. That helped me settle down and do what needed to be done.”
Tuks Netball is certainly doing something right at the moment. For the duration of the Brutal Fruit Series, a total of 26 players represented the ten different teams.
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