Toh Kai Wei ready to captain Singapore netball to new era of success

SINGAPORE – It is a miracle that Toh Kai Wei is still playing netball after her medical mishaps and illness.

As a baby, she survived a near-death experience when she “once turned purple and almost died as I was unable to breathe”.

Joking that she looked like an “avatar” from James Cameron’s sci-fi film, she said she was lucky as her mother returned home from work in time to take her to the hospital, where doctors were able to resuscitate her.

She developed asthma after that, but was able to play badminton, basketball and run short distances before the condition stopped when she was 12.

Toh started playing netball at 13 as it was the only ball sport for girls in her secondary school then. But her budding career almost ended just two years later when she suffered slipped discs.

At its worst, she could not get out of bed or walk, and a simple tap on the back by a teammate during training once led to her collapsing in pain.

Occasionally backaches still flare up without warning, but she has learnt to manage her injury and continues to scamper around the court more than a decade on, ever-ready to conquer the challenges the sport – and life – throws at her.

With 84 caps, she is the national team’s most experienced player going into the Sept 1-7 Mirxes Nations Cup and is revelling in her role as co-captain with fellow 28-year-old Khor Ting Fang, The duo stepped up after the retirement of Charmaine Soh and Aqilah Andin in the past year.

Calling Khor and herself the “good cop and bad cop” in the partnership, Toh said: “I was glad to take up this position because I was always very outspoken on the court, talking about plays and guiding the players here and there.

“Ting Fang and I are different in the way we lead, and we manage different things. She tends to ask the players how they feel off the court, and I’ll handle more of the court play. I will scold them and she will sayang (Singlish for caring) them.”

On the court, she has also had to make adjustments, shifting from goal attack to wing attack following the retirement of Kimberly Lim last December.

Toh said: “The movement is actually very different. A wing attack has a smaller space to make more short bursts and change direction while linking up play. A goal attack makes longer runs and has more time to observe play while waiting to receive the ball to make shots.”

But this is nothing new to the introvert, who likes to analyse game play when she has free time from her work as a project manager for a landscaping company.

In a sport that can sometimes be short of colourful personalities, this has helped her come up with some creative plays. While she was playing as a goal attack, Toh was known to shoot with a basketball-style lay-up stance, which was discouraged by some coaches who preferred to keep things simple.

But her club coach Goh Seck Tuck, who heads Deloitte Netball Super League team Sneakers Stingrays, has been encouraging.

She has since devised a speedy set-up move called “The Shanti” – after Singapore’s sprint queen Shanti Pereira – which she hopes to debut at the Nations Cup. Defending champions Singapore open their campaign against Canada at the OCBC Arena on Sept 1.

Despite the raft of retirements, Toh feels the fast-improving national team can achieve more glory if they remain hungry and work hard as a unit.

She said: “The bulk of the team have played together since 2022 and when I look at our videos from 2023, I noticed improvement in terms of speed, game play and various individual aspects.

“We also have the Singapore A side that also play at the Nations Cup. This helps to blood younger players for the senior team and give them international exposure so they can adapt faster when they get promoted.”

Khor added: “We play as a team and not just as individuals and I have confidence the juniors will step up and fill the big shoes left behind by Charmaine and Aqilah.”

National coach Annette Bishop said: “The first objective and focus is each game we play, ensuring we are clinical with minimal errors and produce our top game.

“It is also always an honour to play in front of a home crowd, so another important factor is having our enthusiastic supporters behind us, which always helps.”