{"id":80966,"date":"2019-07-24T02:01:51","date_gmt":"2019-07-24T00:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=80966"},"modified":"2019-07-24T02:01:51","modified_gmt":"2019-07-24T00:01:51","slug":"queens-back-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2019\/07\/24\/queens-back-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Queens back home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>By Mabvuto Kambuwe:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Malawi national netball team arrived in the country Tuesday after a sixth-place <a href=\"https:\/\/www.times.mw\/malawi-queens-in-sixth-finish-coaches-not-happy\/\">finish<\/a> at the just-ended Netball World Cup in Liverpool, England.<\/p>\n<p>Dressed in black pairs of trousers, black shoes and red blouses, the Queens alighted from a South African Airways flight at 12:30pm.<\/p>\n<p>Upon arrival, there were hugs and kisses from family members, friends and a handful of netball fans.<\/p>\n<p>Minister of Sports Francis Phiso, Director of Sports Jameson Ndalama and other high-profile officials welcomed the team.<\/p>\n<p>Phiso had a quick message for the players, encouraging them to break into top-three on the world rankings.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cI was worried with position nine in the world but now I am happy that you have done well to finish sixth. But, in future, let us fight for top-three in the world. We should also keep on working hard so that we remain a force to reckon with on the continent,\u201d<\/em> Phiso said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Phiso also urged Netball Association of Malawi (Nam) to start planning for the future by embarking on talent identification exercises.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cWe should focus on identifying players for the future because we would not have the same players in the next three years,\u201d<\/em> he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Nam President, Khungile Matiya, said the players displayed solid performances throughout the tournament.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThe players fought hard to reclaim position six in the world. It was not easy for us because competition was stiff as the rest of the teams were also tough,\u201d<\/em> she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Malawi Queens assistant Coach, White Mlilima, said poor preparations were the main problem.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cIt was difficult as we started building the team while we were already at the tournament. We could have identified the problems and rectified them before the tournament,\u201d<\/em> he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The Queens beat Barbados, Singapore, Northern Ireland, Uganda and Zimbabwe but lost to Australia, Jamaica and New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p>New Zealand were crowned champions after dethroning Australia following a 52-51 win in an entertaining final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Mabvuto Kambuwe: Malawi national netball team arrived in the country Tuesday after a sixth-place finish at the just-ended Netball World Cup in Liverpool, England. Dressed in black pairs of trousers, black shoes and red blouses, the Queens alighted from a South African Airways flight at 12:30pm. Upon arrival, there were hugs and kisses from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":80968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80969,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80966\/revisions\/80969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}