The SA Under-21 men’s and women’s hockey teams are hoping to apply the valuable lessons learnt in a triumphant Junior Africa Cup campaign in Namibia to the FIH Junior World Cup later in the year.
South Africa were crowned champions in Windhoek, as both the men and women defeated hosts Namibia in Friday’s finals. The unbeaten sides had already booked their place at the global showpiece earlier in the tournament.
The U21 women beat a stubborn Namibia side 5-0 in the decider.
They took control of the match after captain Caylin Maree, the tournament’s top goalscorer, opened the scoring in the 21st minute.
Ntsopa Mokoena continued her outstanding tournament with a brace, while Maree added a second. Jodie Blows put the finishing touches to a composed victory.
The triumph marked South Africa’s eighth consecutive Junior Africa Cup title in the women’s division.
“Obviously, it’s a huge privilege to win a tournament like that. I think for a lot of people it was their first time here, so it’s been a great experience,” said SA U21 women’s coach Cindy Brown.
“And obviously it’s exciting to now qualify for the World Cup and that’s only seven or eight months away, so hopefully everyone will just keep working harder to be better at that event.
“I’m probably happiest about the fact that we were able to maintain a good intensity. Even though in some of the matches we ended up scoring quite a lot of goals, I think the intensity and the intent the girls played with was consistent throughout.”
There were some takeaways despite dominating all their opponents.
“I think we definitely have to work on our PCs (penalty corners) but that obviously comes with time playing together, as well as certain aspects in defence. I don’t think we were necessarily tested there as much as we could have been and we will be on the world stage,” Brown said.
“So there are definitely elements of the cover defence that we need to work on.”
The U21 women will hone their skills further at the senior IPT and hopefully have another selection camp, Brown said.
“We’ve just got to hopefully try to fit in as many training opportunities together as we can.”
The men also claimed a clinical 5-0 victory over Namibia in the decider. They won back-to-back Junior Africa Cup titles and a sixth title in the past seven editions.
Reuben Sendzul opened the scoring early, before tournament top scorer Jaydon Brooker netted twice to give South Africa a 3-0 lead at half-time. Ross Montgomery extended the advantage in the second half, with Viwe Mbata completing the 5-0 win late on.
“I’m very happy for the team. The players sacrifice a lot to be able to compete and they work extremely hard and thus deserve all the plaudits,” said U21 men’s coach Guy Elliott.
“Not many people know how difficult it is for these players to be able to just compete in these events, let alone win.
“We have learnt quite a bit from our time here. The most important thing that we as a team have learnt is that we have the ability to stay calm and overcome any obstacles that are thrown our way.
“Our strengths are that we are organised and tactically astute. We have X-factor players across the field. We need to work on adding some tactical progressions to our armory.
“We always view the entire cycle as a process, one small step at a time. So we ensure we use every moment together to learn from our experiences so that when we get to the World Cup we are hopefully a complete package.”
The victorious coach said the last selection camp will take place after after the U21 IPT.
“This will give an opportunity to other players in SA to get them into the team. We also have the men’s IPT to play as preparation for the JWC.”
South Africa will now prepare for the FIH Junior World Cup as continental champions.
The men’s tournament takes place in India in December. The women’s showpiece will take place in Chile.
