Baby Proteas coach welcomes Jamaica series as part of World Cup preparations

Mthembu announced her 15-player squad to partake in the three-day Jamaica series along with the senior team from 18 January.

Speaking to SABC Sport, Mthembu says she is grateful to Netball South Africa for adding the junior team to the tour, as this will help with player assessment ahead of the big task in Gibraltar.

"Very important as I said earlier it will give us a benchmark and an indication of what we need to work on and we need such competitions for us to prepare and go forward and patch up where it needs to be patched,” Mthembu said.

“We can't travel to Gibraltar the first time, players need to experience travelling, they need to experience everything else so it's not really the first time. They need to break through all of that before they even travel to Gibraltar in September.

“So, the preparations are not only for games but also the outside logistics on individual players but after all it will be a good preparation, thank you to Netball South Africa for giving us an opportunity to give the players to take on the Jamaicans for this upcoming series."

Mthembu unpacks her expectations of the selected 15-player squad and what they aim to achieve in the upcoming series.

"We had a tough time selecting the squad because all 25 players that we selected in the squad are brilliant players and it's something that we can work on. It's a privilege actually to have players you can take on tour and give us a benchmark on how far and how much we need to work on when we come back home,” she added.

“It's players that we need to make sure that they'll be able to take the physicality, the speed, to see how they will be able to handle the heart and everything else that they are gonna be experiencing there in Jamaica."