Times Of Swaziland: SCORE AGAINST SA HISTORIC – FLAG

SCORE AGAINST SA HISTORIC – FLAG
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Chris Dlamini on 10/03/2022 08:39:00


MBABANE – Over a decade ago Eswatini would be hammered by neighbouring South
Africa in international pool matches, but that appears to be changing.
Having returned from Zambia on Tuesday morning through the Ngwenya Border Gate,
the country’s Pool National Teams, both men and ladies senior squads’ head
coach Flag Nxumalo was gracious in defeat at the All Africa Pool Championships
2022 held in Harare from March 4-6. “We played very well but what disturbed us
most on day one, which was last Friday, is that we didn’t have enough rest
because we reached Zambia around 9am while games started at 11am so we had
fatigue but still performed well.
“We lost our opening match against South Africa 15-10 and it’s for the first
time in history we played that score line against them. This just shows that we
are not far from them. we lost our second match with the same score line against
Zambia in the afternoon. We’re still learning but did well,” he said. He
went on to congratulate the four players who finished in the last 16 of the
singles divisions as two males and two ladies reached that stage, despite that
the last official international assignment for the country was in 2008 when the
same tournament was hosted here alongside the World Blackball Championships.
These are male squad captain Sithembiso ‘Dodge’ Matsebula, Brian Raynor,
Baliwe Mnyakeni and Thandiswa Dlamini. “At the time the singles were played,
our players looked tired but they made us proud as they lost to top seeds,”
said Nxumalo.