Malawi Breaks Records at the Fast5 Netball World Series

Sunday 11th, November 2012 / 15:13 Written by

 The Malawi netball team’s participation at the newly introduced 3-day Fast5 Netball World Series has seen two record-breaking wins against the games traditional powerhouses Australia and England.  The Malawi team, also fondly known as ‘The Queens’, is ranked position five worldwide and position one in Africa ahead of South Africa which is the only other African team qualifying for the tournament at position six worldwide and two in Africa. The Queens on Friday defeated world number one netball team, Australia 33-15 and went on to trounce England 27-23 on Saturday.  England is on position three on the netball world standings.



However, The Queens registered gut-wrenching losses with a 44-24 loss to world position two New Zealand, a narrow 32-31 loss to world position four Jamaica’s Sunshine Girls and a disappointing 48-34 loss to number six, South Africa. The losses will no doubt affect their chances of qualifying for tomorrow’s semi-finals.  Still, the meaningful victories against England and Australia were not lost on the team. New Zealand reports that after defeating England,

The Malawi Queens were reduced to tears, busted out the dance moves and even fell to their knees in prayer as they claimed their second high-profile scalp in as many days.

Coach Griffin Saenda had this to say:

To beat England or Australia is not a joke. We know we are a small country, not all that abundant in resources, but we have skilled players who put it to themselves ‘let’s do this’. They are willing to do something and that’s why now we are producing the results.

According to online public encyclopedia, Wikipedia,

Fast5 (originally called Fastnet) is a variation of netball featuring shortened games and goals worth multiple points. The new format was announced by the International Federation of Netball Associations (IFNA) in 2008, and was primarily developed for a new international competition, the Fast5 Netball World Series. The rules were revamped for 2012, with the vartiation being renamed Fast5. The main Fast5 competition is the Fast5 Netball World Series; presently, it is the only international competition based on the new format. It was first held in October 2009 and is contested on an annual basis between the top six national netball teams in the IFNA World Rankings.
Netball is a ball sport similar to basketball.  Its development began in England in the 1890s thus alongside football, it is mostly popular in Commonwealth countries.

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