{"id":244811,"date":"2022-12-06T03:58:50","date_gmt":"2022-12-06T01:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\/?p=125892"},"modified":"2022-12-06T03:58:50","modified_gmt":"2022-12-06T01:58:50","slug":"past-does-not-count-as-madibaz-face-fresh-water-polo-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/past-does-not-count-as-madibaz-face-fresh-water-polo-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Past does not count as Madibaz face fresh water polo challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1 \">\n<aside id=\"republication_tracker_tool-2\" class=\"republication_tracker_tool clearfix\">\n<h5 class=\"adtitle\">Republish for Free<\/h5>\n<div class=\"license\">\n<p><button name=\"Republish This Story\" id=\"cc-btn\" class=\"republication-tracker-tool-button\">Republish This Story<\/button><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"license\" rel=\"noreferrer license noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Creative Commons License\" class=\"lazyload\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/past-does-not-count-as-madibaz-face-fresh-water-polo-challenge.png\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Creative Commons License\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/past-does-not-count-as-madibaz-face-fresh-water-polo-challenge.png\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"message\">\n<p>Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/aside>\n<figure id=\"attachment_125893\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-125893\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\/?attachment_id=125893\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt width=\"300\" height=\"200\" class=\"wp-image-125893 size-thumbnail lazyload\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/past-does-not-count-as-madibaz-face-fresh-water-polo-challenge.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-125893 size-thumbnail\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/past-does-not-count-as-madibaz-face-fresh-water-polo-challenge.jpg\" alt width=\"300\" height=\"200\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-125893\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Madibaz and South Africa player Ashleigh Vaughan will be a key member of the women\u2019s water polo team at the University Sport SA tournament in Durban from December 7 to 9. Photo: Madibaz Sport<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Although the Madibaz women\u2019s water polo team have had significant success in recent times, they are braced for a fresh challenge at the University Sport South Africa tournament in Durban this week.<\/p>\n<p>Nelson Mandela University will also send a men\u2019s team to the event, which is hosted by Varsity College from Wednesday to Friday (December 7 to 9).<\/p>\n<p>The women\u2019s team have finished as high as third at previous USSA competitions and earlier this year they won the Currie Cup at the nationals in East London.<\/p>\n<p>Yet coach Delaine Mentoor believed that they would have to be at their absolute best to maintain that high standard against their varsity rivals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think our opponents will expect that high level of play from us, which will make each game even more difficult,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are not looking at the past because we don\u2019t want that sort of pressure. Our focus is entirely on doing the best we can in the week.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mentoor said that with several new players in the mix the women\u2019s outfit had a completely different look from the one that competed in the previous USSA tournament.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut there are some experienced players in the team and, given that, I think they can do well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She explained that they could count on a core group of players who had played together in the past and had ample experience. They include national players Meghan Maartens (in goals) and Ashleigh Vaughan as well as SA U20 player Erin Harty, Cassidy Holmes and Linzi Scholtz.<\/p>\n<p>The men\u2019s squad, on the other hand, had not competed in any major tournaments, according to Mentoor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur top priority will be to work together as a team and if they are able to do that, I feel they can be competitive. We are really just excited to be able to send both teams again after the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In preparation, the players have been doing strength work in the gym at the High Performance Complex on campus. In addition, they have swimming and three to five skill and game sessions per week.<\/p>\n<p>The first goal for both teams will be to safely negotiate the round-robin sections in the hope of qualifying for the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are six sides in the women\u2019s section and five in the men\u2019s, so we play a round-robin and then go straight into the playoffs,\u201d said Mentoor.<\/p>\n<p>Maties and UCT were strong across the board and she believed they would pose the greatest threat in both sections to any team eyeing a top result.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVarsity College have also done well to put together strong sides for both their teams, so I expect them to be competitive playing at home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mypr.co.za\/contact\/featured\/\">CLICK HERE to submit your press release to MyPR.co.za<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p> <span class=\"post-views-icon dashicons dashicons-chart-bar\"><\/span> <span class=\"post-views-label\">Press Release Views since 1 July 2022:<\/span> <span class=\"post-views-count\">129<\/span> <\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-pagination pagination\">Pages: <span class=\"post-page-numbers current\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Page <\/span>1<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\/past-does-not-count-as-madibaz-face-fresh-water-polo-challenge\/2\/\" class=\"post-page-numbers\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Page <\/span>2<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mypr.co.za\">Source: MyPR.co.za<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Republish for Free Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. Madibaz and South Africa player Ashleigh Vaughan will be a key member of the women\u2019s water polo team at the University Sport SA tournament in Durban from December 7 to 9. Photo: Madibaz Sport Although [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":244812,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9021,1],"tags":[3257],"class_list":{"0":"post-244811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mypr","8":"category-south-africa","9":"tag-mypr","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/past-does-not-count-as-madibaz-face-fresh-water-polo-challenge.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}