We will go hard in remaining games

	South Africa were successful in the Ireland leg of their tour © Rob O'Connor

We were extremely excited to come to Ireland and England, not really knowing what to expect. We knew the main challenge would be England but it was nice to play against Ireland and also to give them some exposure. Playing against England was a lot tougher and it really did show us what we will still need to do in our game.

We weren't really surprised though - England have always been a good side. I've seen some videos of when they played in 2000 and I've watched them mature as a team - nowadays they can beat Australia. When we saw the results against Australia and New Zealand earlier this year we knew they would be hard work.

That was what made this tour so awesome because we needed to see what we need to do to close the gap on the top four teams in the world. Although we lost the series 4-0 what makes us different to 2003 was that we never seemed to grow then. In this series we've improved, in team spirit – even though we were losing, we still stuck there. I think the girls have showed a lot of character, getting well beaten in the first games then coming back in the last two.

In the first two games England took us on with the batting and our bowlers definitely had to improve on being more consistent and working on their skill level and they have. In terms of the fielding, we had to adapt our field placings to their style of play. We have worked hard.

The only thing we would still be disappointed with would be the batting department. We haven't had the partnerships to give the top order some confidence. The top order need to be able to improve on skills to take on the bowlers. The main thing for us, especially against England, was finding there were much fewer balls that were loose so the girls had to work hard for the runs. Out of frustration they would play a loose shot and get out. We must learn to really graft in the provincial league and just work for our runs.

Throughout the series the girls have learned a great deal and we've taken out a lot of positives. We've improved throughout the series. It's not only been negative for us, it's been extremely positive as we prepare for next year's World Cup. We are willing to work and aiming for the semi-final.

Obviously we have our provincial league when we get back and we will play as much as possible. We have challenged the girls to play international-level cricket in the provincial league. We would also look to the Super Fours fixtures which were perfect for us when we trialled them at Twenty20 level before the tour. Once you've got the top 44 players in the country, the more cricket we play the better we become and that's also in the pipeline closer to November.

I played county cricket for Kent in 2004 and the Super Fours was new in England and we suggested it in South Africa and we put it on a trial run because of geographical settings - it's a lot harder to get the teams together to play as they are so spread out.

But it's definitely the way to go, and now hopefully we can expand the tournament to work on the ODIs. Cricket South Africa will definitely do from their side what they can as always and I know they had a big role to play in arranging the sponsorship for us.

In the meantime we've got three Twenty20 games to look forward to against England this week. We haven't played as much as England have and so it will be more great experience. We will go hard and play positive.