SA hockey’s quick demise on Gold Coast does insidious damage
The South African men’s hockey team’s hopes at the Commonwealth Games were quickly extinguished, but apart from scuppering any possibility of them adding to the Proteas squad’s impressive haul of medals, more insidious damage was done to the image of the game as a whole in this country.
South Africa began their campaign with a disappointing 4-2 loss to Scotland, who are not even in the top-20 of the world rankings, and were then hammered 4-0 by Australia and 6-0 by New Zealand. They ended the pool stage with a good 2-0 win over 11th-ranked Canada, but they were still condemned to playing in the wooden-spoon playoff for ninth and 10th place.
A 3-2 defeat at the hands of Wales, ranked 24th in the world, completed a shocking tournament for South Africa.
No-one is questioning the commitment of the team, who are, after all, basically amateurs trying to compete with professionals, but questions have to be asked about the selection of the squad.
Surely for a tournament of the Commonwealth Games’ stature – which attracts plenty of media attention back home – the selectors should fill the team with their most experienced, best players? This was not the case with several seasoned campaigners being left at home as SA hockey tried to ‘build for the future’.
The South African Hockey Association (Saha) like to give plenty of lip about a lack of financial support from Sascoc and corporates, but in this instance they have shot themselves in the foot.
The Commonwealth Games, with its widespread coverage, is the ideal platform – second only to the Olympics in terms of our hockey – for SA hockey to make a statement. Winning a medal, which is not a realistic target in the World Cup later this year, would make the public and potential sponsors and supporters sit up and take notice.
Even our women’s side, which is a top-class outfit, disappointed, only managing to finish sixth thanks to defeats to India and Canada and a draw with Malaysia. Canada and Malaysia are not even ranked in the world top-20, while South Africa are 14th.
It all just showed a lack of strategic thinking by Saha. No doubt the powers that be will say something about the mechanics of preparation for the World Cup being behind the Commonwealth Games failure. But a Commonwealth Games medal – or even a strong run for one – would have been a real fillip for the game back home, engendering far more positive PR than a 10th-place finish in a World Cup that the average South African will be totally oblivious about.
A full-strength South African side would have had a chance to nick a medal on the Gold Coast, something which nobody expects them to do in the World Cup. Now, instead, the public opinion of hockey will once again be of a bunch of no-hopers.
Saha needs to make better decisions to ensure they at least give their under-resourced, struggling national teams some gloss.
https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-gauteng/20180421/282376925178424
What’s the solution in your eyes Ken? In my opinion we need to try and get more of our players, especially the younger ones, overseas playing in the Dutch, German, Belgian etc. leagues. To have national players playing in our leagues here, while great for the average player like me, doesn’t help them on the international stage. The difference in class is clear to see when they go to a tournament like World League or CWG. I mean the results from CWG were embarrassing and that’s being extremely kind.
We have so much potential but it seems we are only tapping into 30% of it at the moment
Thanks for the comment Jarryd!
I agree with you but unfortunately I think it’s a bit of a chicken & egg situation – those top European clubs won’t take our players unless they are proven at international level.
For our national team to really compete, the guys need to be exposed to professional hockey day in, day out. It’s not going to happen here in SA any time soon, so yes, the more that can go play overseas the better. But then we have to utilise the experience they have picked up!