UNF organize U-12 tournament to groom talent
UNF president Sarah Babirye Kityo.
What you need to know:
- The tournament dubbed U-12 Christmas Gala, according to Sarah Babirye Kityo, the UNF president, is a way of giving back to youngsters in this Christmas season as well as impacting a culture of competition among netballers from different regions.
In the bid to groom more talent to feed the senior netball teams, the Uganda Netball Federation (UNF) will today hold their first U-12 netball tournament at the Old Kampala court next to the federation offices.
Five teams from all the regions of the country including Kampala, Central, Western, Eastern and Northern will take part in the round robin format competition.
The winner will be awarded a trophy and a cash prize while all participants receive medals.
The tournament dubbed U-12 Christmas Gala, according to Sarah Babirye Kityo, the UNF president, is a way of giving back to youngsters in this Christmas season as well as impacting a culture of competition among netballers from different regions.
“We have invited U- 12, next time it will be U-10. This will help us to know who to call when we are in need of a national team of a specific age category. We try to make sure that we build netball in different regions of Uganda. We want a national team with people from different regions,” Babirye told Daily Monitor.
“As it is the first time, they have not played qualification games right from the village level but in the future we want them to do it that way,” she added.
Targeting top placement
With the new International Netball Federation (INF) rankings held this week, reflecting matches played from March 31 2021 up to December 5, Uganda managed to climb from seventh to sixth place.
According to INF, Uganda’s Pent Series victory and successful stint at the Africa Netball Cup increased their rating by four to 126 allowing them to move into sixth place replacing Malawi, who moved down to 7th with a rating of 125.
This latest update saw no change to the positions of the top five teams in the world netball rankings, with Australia retaining first place, New Zealand in second, England third and Jamaica and South Africa fourth and fifth place.
Babirye is glad Uganda managed to climb to sixth place but she says they will not settle for less.
Uganda’s target is getting to the top places and she says this can be achieved through grooming more talents, hence a need to include all regions in the talent search.
“Some of our national team players are getting tired, we need new and young blood to follow in their footsteps if we are to get better rankings,” she said.
