The Spar national netball team left for Jamaica on Sunday brimful of confidence after a successful training camp in Pretoria.
“We put the players under a lot of pressure during the camp, and they responded very positively,” said head coach Elize Kotze.
The Proteas, ranked fifth in the world, will play a three-Test series against fourth-ranked Jamaica, with a warm-up match against the Jamaican Under-21 side.
“I think we have come a long way since we played Jamaica at the World Championships in Singapore last year,” said Kotze.
“We made a lot of soft, unforced errors, and we have been working hard at eliminating those.
“The players are focusing on what we do right, and we have overcome the fear of failure.”
Kotze said it was important for South Africa to keep playing against the top netball countries.
“If we want to improve our ranking, we have to play the better sides, and we learn more from playing them than constantly playing against teams that are weaker than us.
“Jamaica is also an amateur netball country, unlike Australia and New Zealand, and I believe this is the time for us to take that step up.”
She said she was very happy with the 12 players selected for the tour.
“Having Vanes-Mari du Toit as goalkeeper, working with Amanda Mynhardt as goal defence, means we have the players who can physically challenge those very tall Jamaican players,” she said.
“I'm also very happy with our centre court players. With players like Erin (Burger), Bongi (Bongiwe Msomo) and Mampho (Tsotetsi), we have so many options, and we are able to have a Plan B or even a Plan C.” – Sapa