Proteas’ head coach Jenny van Dyk believes big. Travelling halfway around the globe to take on the two top ranked netball nations fills her with excitement rather than trepidation.
Currently ranked fifth in the world, South Africa have had a mixed bag of results in recent years. A sixth placed finish at the most recent World Cup was far from ideal, but a draw against New Zealand at that tournament and more recently a win against England has given her side confidence they can match it against the best in the upcoming series.
Van Dyk says, “As South Africans, I know the potential we have, how eager we are, all the hardships we have gone through.
“I’m an optimist, an idealist, a dreamer and I dream big. I believe big”
Her positive attitude was reinforced as a young coach. Getting ready to face a side who’d beaten them in three consecutive finals, she was approached by her captain.
“We were on the team bus, and she said, ‘Coach, how do you feel about this? Can we do it?’
“And I said, ‘Yeees, I think so.’
“She looked at me, and said, ‘Well, you better start showing it.’
“And I realised, players read off the coach so much. They can smell fear on you, they know when you are telling them lies. So I believe our players have the capability to become the best, and that’s important.”
Proteas’ head coach Jenny van Dyk. Image courtesy of Netball South Africa.
Van Dyk took over the Proteas in March 2024, after a distinguished career in charge of club and South African pathway sides, along with a successful stint in Botswana. Coaching was a career she literally fell into by accident, however.
All she’d dreamed of was representing the Proteas, and was on track after appearing in her nations’ Under 21 side and being selected in the senior squad. Then two major injuries wrecked her playing career.
“I did my ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) while playing in my Matric year at uni, played with the tear a week later, fell on my shoulder and dislocated it.
“While I couldn’t play that season my coaches asked if I would come in and help them. That’s when I fell in love with coaching. I could express myself without having all the pain and trouble while I was playing. So I started coaching in 2000 and have never stopped from there.”
Van Dyk’s success has included three Varsity titles as the head coach of UP-Tuks, five with the Gauteng Jaguars in Premier League, the 2022 Singapore Nations Cup with Botswana, and stints with the South African Under 21s and Presidents XII. She took over the reins from legendary Australian Norma Plummer in 2024.
Combining years of playing and coaching experience with her degree in Sports Psychology, van Dyk believes what happens off court is just as important as what happens on it. One of her key philosophies in life is, ‘We rise up from lifting others.’
“That’s my coaching belief in a nutshell. While we play to win always, winning is never how we measure our success. There’s a standard that ranks above all others, that we rise by lifting others.
“In netball terms, it’s important for me to give back, to do everything possible for our players to perform at their best.”
Building strong relationships with her playing group is at the heart of van Dyk’s coaching philosophy. Image courtesy of Netball South Africa.
Empowering women to succeed comes down to building strong relationships, van Dyk believes. She combines science and a solid plan, with getting to know her players. Along the way, she’s continued Plummer’s work in unifying one of netball’s most diverse teams.
With her South African players coming from a wide range of cultures, races, religions, socio-economic backgrounds and post-Apartheid emotions, van Dyk says building connections was a struggle to begin with.
“At the start we did quite a lot of sessions to make everybody understood where they’ve come from and what’s important in specific cultures in all our players.
“As South Africans we’ve grown so much over the years. There’s a lot of forgiveness and acceptance that has happened, and it’s the way we look at each other, the way we are one united nation now.
“It’s about accepting everybody exactly how they are. We don’t judge. The team is a zero judging place.
“Whatever you want to do in your life, you have to take responsibility for that on one side, but also you have the privilege to share what you want from your life in this environment. And it’s important for us as coaches and managers to understand that.”
A starting point, van Dyk says, is just learning a player’s correct cultural name – no matter how challenging.
“That might seem small,” she said, “but it was tough in the first couple of years.
“Players would come in and say, ‘My name is … but you can call me this, or that.
“A discussion we had as a group is that your name is your heritage, your legacy. So we WILL call you by your name, even if it’s the most difficult one to pronounce, it’s yours. We want you to be yourself.”
Building connections has been important to the Proteas. Image courtesy of Netball South Africa.
One of the many responsibilities that lies on van Dyk’s shoulders is knowing that through selection in the national team, she can change women’s lives. Some of her athletes come from rural backgrounds, or highly impoverished ones, with sport an important pathway to empowerment.
Van Dyk says, “A lot of our players do come from very rural areas and had never been exposed to a high performance environment. They’ve got the raw talent and ability to make it, but you have to set them up to succeed.
“You have to know when it’s the right time for them to enter the team, when to get them on court without them feeling overwhelmed. There’s so much of that we have to focus on especially in African countries.
“But it’s literally changed their lives, and also their family’s, and that’s fantastic to see and experience.”
One of the lessons that van Dyk learned along the way is handing over some level of responsibility to players for their own performance. “We do have a younger, less internationally experienced group than what we’ve had before, and there’s a lot of work that needs to go into the players.
“But one of the things Norma taught me was to make them think for themselves. At the time I was coaching the Jaguars and I was struggling. We were playing in finals but didn’t get over the line for three years in a row. Norma said to me that I was spoon feeding players too much. As a young coach, I had all the passion and I was trying to accelerate them. I taught them everything except how to think for themselves out on court.
“So after that conversation I changed my approach. It took another year of failing, because they had to make errors as well as me. But it started snowballing and then the teams started performing.”
While South African sport does have a quota system to make sure the nation is well represented, van Dyk says all of her players are selected based on performance. And with her players scattered across the world in various leagues, that can be challenging. Along with her coaching staff van Dyk viewed footage of their recent matches, but still brought the squad into camp to make her final selections.
“The standard and style of the leagues across the world are so different. You might look fantastic in one, but how do you compare to players in others? Let’s bring everyone together and see who combines well.
“We are starting to create the depth we want, although still lack it in a couple of positions. We’ve had some strong performances by our Baby Proteas (21s) and that will help in the future.”
The Proteas finish off a training session in November 2024. Image courtesy of Netball South Africa.
While South Africa have had a slightly interrupted preparation ahead of the New Zealand and Australian tour due to the suspension of President Cecilia Molokwane earlier this year, van Dyk says that it’s business as usual for the team. “Before the last World Cup Australia was going through quite a few things.
“I said to the players recently, ‘You know what, they were still performing at their very best when things were serious. That’s your responsibility as professional athletes.
“We keep the politics away from the players. They know what they need to know, they know what to refer where, and while it’s not ideal for us, netball continues and we are strong.”
While van Dyk wasn’t at the helm of the Proteas when they disappointingly finished sixth at their home World Cup in Cape Town, she said the team has learned some valuable lessons from that tournament. Paying attention to what other African nations are doing – particularly rivals Uganda and Malawi – has helped them to develop their own style.
Van Dyk says, “There’s always a misconception that African teams have no structure, they are just throwing the ball around and wasting time. That’s so far from the truth, there’s so much strategy and method behind it.
“So we’ve really analysed the African teams to understand how to play against them, and we won the 2024 Africa Cup. We took those lessons and were able to beat England at the Nations Cup earlier this year.”
The Proteas celebrate success against Malawi and Zimbabwe in November, 2024. Image courtesy of Netball South Africa.
The squad selected to tour Australia and New Zealand is highly versatile and adaptable, van Dyke says, with a range of different playing options. And while there are some new players in the mix, they also have a core of experienced players.
“We never want to be in the position where if you replace someone, it’s with someone who has a similar or same style.
“We are testing some new players, and it’s now about consistency for us. We understand that the top four nations get better as the game progresses. When you play up, they are just getting started at half time. They’ve had their break and a chat, and now they have a new plan.
“That’s very different to when you play down – teams ranked below you, it’s quite level for half the game and then you break away.
“So to level up, we need to become competitive all the way to the very end of the match. We’ve been working very hard on that, and our previous team with Norma really got there – we had some draws with New Zealand, we lost to Australia by a point.
“A lot of our new group of players have never played against these teams, but we know we can be competitive, and we inspire each other to be better.”
Listen to Georgia Doyle and Jenny van Dyk on Sporting Scoop as they preview the Proteas ahead of the two series.
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Proteas team for tour of New Zealand and Australia
Head coach: Jenny van Dyk
Assistant coach: Zanele Mdodana
Team: Nicholé Breedt, Khanyisa Chawane (captain), Entle Futshane**, Kamogelo Maseko, Tarle Mathe, Owethu Ngubane, Refiloe Nketsa, Nozipho Ntshangase**, Nicola Smith, Rolene Streutker, Elmeré van der Berg, Shadine van der Merwe, Juanita van Tonder**, Jamie van Wyk, Sanmarie Visser
** Debutantes
Karla Pretorius and Syntiche Kabuya were unavailable for selection, while Boitumelo Mahloko is out injured.
