Malawi Queens expatriate coach Debbie Fuller says she is impressed with how the team is adapting in the United Kingdom ahead of the 2026 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
The Games will run from July 23 to August 2 and the Queens were in Manchester, England, at the weekend for closed door training matches against England’s men’s netball team and the world’s second ranked side New Zealand.
In an interview, the New Zealander said: “They have exceeded my expectations and Malawi must be proud that this group has huge resilience.
“They are able to adapt, they have made so many friends already with the English community and they are very excited about being here.”
On the training games, Fuller said she was impressed with movement and shooters’ combinations.
She said: “It is really important when you have two strong shooters like Mwawi [Kumwenda] and Tendai [Masamba] and also Stella [Matelezi] because you can bring different combinations against tough competition, so you see how they complement each other.
“So, I am really pleased that they had the opportunity to work with one another under big pressure and even when I was walking out of the stadium, one of the English players came to me and said your team has so much speed, dynamic movement and it was so hard for him to keep up.
“These games were so important to us. When you into preparations for big competitions, you need to have the team train and gain on the inch of their potential.
“They were able to work things out and create options. The more we do that, the more we’re going to be prepared for anything that is thrown at us at the Commonwealth Games.”
In a separate interview, Queens captain Takondwa Lwazi said they gained a lot from the friendlies.
“The coach was trying different combinations to see if they could work and it did. We played according to the game plan there are just a few areas to patch up,” she said.
The Queens, who are ranked ninth in the world, are in Pool A alongside top-ranked Australia, England who are ranked third, fifth-ranked South Africa, Tonga, who are eighth nd 14th-ranked Northern Ireland.
