PART ONE: ANITA TRNINIC – BUILDING AN AQUATIC CULTURE OF EXCELLENCE
We have long been recognised for academic excellence. It is an important part of who we are, but it is not the only measure of what a Roedean education seeks to achieve.
Beyond the classroom, there are girls discovering what they are capable of on stages, sports fields, courts and in swimming pools.
And within our aquatic programme, something significant has been built.
Across swimming and water polo, Roedean has developed an environment in which girls can begin, develop, compete and, for those with the ability and ambition, progress towards provincial, national and international representation.
This is aquatic excellence.
It does not begin with the medal, the national cap or the final whistle.
It begins much earlier, with coaches who recognise potential and are prepared to invest the hours required to develop it.
At the helm of Roedean’s water polo programme is Anita Trninic, whose contribution has helped shape a culture in which girls are encouraged not simply to participate, but to discover how far their ability can take them.
And for a number of our players, that journey has taken them far beyond the school pool and onto international stages.
EXCELLENCE IS BUILT, NOT DISCOVERED OVERNIGHT
High-performance athletes are rarely created in a single season.
Their development happens incrementally.
It happens during early-morning training sessions when most of the campus is still quiet.
It happens through repetition, conditioning, technical correction, difficult losses, close victories and the decision to return to training and try again.
Behind those moments is a coach.
The role of a coach is not simply to prepare a team for its next fixture.
It is to recognise potential before an athlete necessarily recognises it herself.
It is to understand what she needs at different stages of her development.
It is to challenge her when she is capable of more and support her through the inevitable setbacks that come with competitive sport.
And it is to create an environment in which talent has the opportunity to mature.
For Anita, there is no shortcut or secret formula. The recipe is consistency, strong foundations, exposure to quality competition and, importantly, understanding the individual athlete behind the performance.
“You cannot manufacture excellence overnight. It is built through consistency, discipline, and doing the basics well, over and over again. As coaches, our job is to see the potential in each girl, understand what she needs, and then create the environment in which she can keep developing. Talent matters, but what she does with that talent, and the work she is prepared to put in, is what ultimately takes her further.”
– Anita Trninic
That philosophy has helped produce players who have progressed from school water polo to representing their province and country, with some going on to compete on international stages.
BUILDING A PATHWAY TO THE WORLD STAGE
A strong aquatic programme cannot be measured by the success of one team or one season.
Its strength lies in what comes next.
Can younger girls see a pathway ahead of them?
Are athletes being progressively challenged as their ability develops?
Are there opportunities to compete against stronger opposition?
Can a talented school athlete realistically aspire to provincial, national or international representation?
And are we creating an environment capable of producing the next generation of athletes after the current one has moved on?
This is where sustained coaching becomes fundamental.
Anita’s contribution to Roedean water polo reflects this long-term approach.
Over the years, players developed through Roedean’s water polo programme have progressed to compete beyond school level, including on international stages.
Among them is Old Roedeanian Boati Motau, whose aquatic journey ultimately took her to the Olympic Games, where she represented South Africa at Tokyo 2020.
More recently, Roedean players Gabriella Morrell, Kuhle Buthelezi, Ané du Plessis and Esmé du Plessis represented South Africa at the World Aquatics Women’s U18 Water Polo Championships in Spain in 2026, with Gabriella captaining the South African U18 team.
These achievements are significant individually, but collectively they tell an even bigger story.
They demonstrate a pathway.
For the younger Roedean girl watching from poolside, international representation no longer feels like something that happens somewhere else, to somebody else.
She can see girls who trained in the same pool, wore the same Roedean colours and progressed to represent their country.
The possibility becomes real.
THE RECIPE BEHIND THE RESULTS
There is no single training session responsible for producing an international athlete.
There are hundreds.
There is no single conversation that develops resilience.
There are many.
And there is no single tournament that creates a high-performance player.
It is the accumulation of experiences, expectations, coaching, and opportunities over years that gradually shapes an athlete.
This is perhaps the less visible side of Anita’s recipe for success.
Consistency.
Showing up even when motivation fluctuates.
Strong foundations.
Ensuring technique and fundamentals are established before expecting higher-level performance.
Competition.
Giving players opportunities to test themselves against strong opposition and learn what performing under pressure requires.
Individual development.
Understanding that every athlete progresses differently and that coaching cannot always take a one-size-fits-all approach.
Belief.
Creating an environment in which a girl begins to see possibilities for herself that she may not initially have imagined.
And finally, time.
Because meaningful development cannot be rushed.
THE HOURS BEHIND THE ACHIEVEMENT
When our girls achieve sporting success, we rightly celebrate her.
But behind almost every achievement is a much less visible story.
It is the coach who arrived before the training session.
The coach who stayed afterwards.
The planning that happened before the players entered the pool.
The technical correction repeated until it became instinctive.
The conversation after a disappointing result.
The hours spent preparing for the next opponent.
The weekends devoted to tournaments.
And the continued investment in a player long before anybody knew what she might become.
These hours matter.
They are part of the reason a girl can move from potential to performance.
And they are why coaches must form an important part of the story when we speak about Roedean’s sporting achievements.
EXCELLENCE HAS MANY EXPRESSIONS
Roedean’s academic reputation remains an important part of our identity.
But our responsibility as a school is broader.
We want the academically gifted girl to discover how far her intellect can take her.
We want the artist and musician to have the environment in which their creativity can flourish.
And when a girl discovers that her strength lies in the water, we want her to have access to the coaching, facilities, competition and support required to discover how far she can go.
The discipline demanded by aquatic sport reinforces many of the qualities we value throughout a Roedean education.
Resilience.
Commitment.
Teamwork.
Courage.
Consistency.
The ability to perform under pressure.
The understanding that excellence requires sustained effort.
These are lessons that travel well beyond the swimming pool.
BUILDING AN AQUATIC SCHOOL OF EXCELLENCE
Our ambition is therefore bigger than winning the next tournament.
It is to continue strengthening Roedean’s position as a school of aquatic excellence, where girls have meaningful pathways from their earliest engagement with the water through to high-performance competition.
That requires facilities.
It requires competitive opportunities.
It requires investment.
But, above all, it requires people.
Coaches such as Anita who invest their expertise, energy and time in developing girls season after season.
Because trophies eventually return to cabinets.
Results become part of the record books.
Students graduate.
But a strong sporting culture continues.
It passes from one generation of Roedean girls to the next.
And perhaps one of the strongest measures of that culture is when a young girl stands beside the Roedean pool and sees an older Roedeanian competing for South Africa on the international stage.
She can look at that athlete and think:
She started here too.
That is the foundation of aquatic excellence at Roedean: not simply producing successful teams, but creating an environment in which girls are given the opportunity, coaching, time and belief to discover their best potential and, for those capable of doing so, to take that potential all the way to the world stage.
NEXT IN THE SERIES: In Part Two, we meet Siyabonga “Siya” Guzana and explore the demands of high-performance coaching, what it takes to prepare athletes for the next level, and how Roedean continues to build pathways from school water polo to provincial, national and international competition.
