Ken Borland

The South African men’s hockey team will go into their African Hockey Olympic Qualifier in Pretoria from Sunday with a few injury withdrawals but a full complement of their available stars playing for European franchises.

The winners of the eight-team men’s competition, which concludes with the final on Sunday, November 5, will qualify directly for the Paris Olympics next July, so the stakes are high and SA coach Cheslyn Gie is delighted with the squad he has.

“Unfortunately we’ve had a few injuries, but it is still a very good squad and our training camp has gone very well,” Gie said at the University of Pretoria, where the tournament will be held, on Thursday.

“Clayton Saker, Le-Neal Jackson and Connor Beauchamp, who is one of our drag-flickers, are all out with knee injuries. Unfortunately that’s three defenders ruled out, and Chad Futcher and goalkeeper Siya Nolutshungu have both just started new jobs and cannot get leave, our team being an amateur one.

“But everyone else is good to go and our European-based players are in the midst of their season. They’ve all played four-to-six matches and they are looking really sharp, despite having to travel long distances to get here.

“This is a very important tournament for us, it always is, and I’ve never experienced any easy matches in it. It’s a bit of a worry that we haven’t played a Test since the World Cup at the beginning of the year and we will need to adjust quickly to the pace of international hockey and it’s something we’ve tried to simulate in our training camp,” Gie said.

Speaking of drag-flickers, Gie said he was concerned about Nigeria’s arsenal of these penalty corner goal-scoring specialists, but he also warned about the challenge perennial finalists Egypt, Kenya and Ghana will pose, even though South Africa have won every one of these qualifying tournaments. Fortunately those last three teams are all in the other pool, with Namibia, while the hosts will take on Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Uganda and should comfortably finish in the top two of their section, thereby qualifying for the semi-finals.

“Egypt are definitely going to be strong contenders, but Nigeria have three very good drag-flickers and Ghana are always strong. They actually led against Egypt in the semi-finals of the last qualifier, but missed some tap-in goals. Kenya are also very physical and strong, and they’ve been together for a while with their whole U21 squad coming through.

“You can’t underestimate how quickly things change in this tournament. There’s a lot of ebb and flow in the games too, and we have to make sure that when things are going well for us, we score the goals, and when things are not going well, we keep the opposition out,” Gie said.

South Africa’s women’s team have also won all four of the previous qualifying tournaments, but experienced star Celia Seerane said although their preparation has been outstanding, thoughts of just pitching up and cleaning up the opposition are far-fetched.

“It’s probably the best prepared we’ve ever been for the Africa Cup, we are ready and focused and enjoying the comforts of playing at home, but we can’t take anything for granted.

“History tells us that Ghana are going to be tough opponents and I remember when we went 1-0 down to them in a final in Kenya,” Seerane said.

Assistant coach Inky Zondi had a similar warning.

“All the teams have their unique style, which makes it very exciting. Nigeria will be very physical, they play quite an exciting brand of hockey and they have the combinations to do well in small spaces. Ghana are always a force, as are Kenya,” Zondi said.

South Africa play Nigeria and Zimbabwe in their pool, while Ghana, Kenya, Namibia and Zambia are in the other group in the seven-team women’s competition.

South Africa’s men open their campaign against Zimbabwe at 6pm on Sunday, while the women play the same country, at 4pm.

The spidercam – or the Flying Fox as it is called in Australia – is the haute couture of televised cricket coverage these days, but on Tuesday it nearly caused serious injury to South African fast bowler Anrich Nortje in the second Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Following a high-speed burst of fast bowling after lunch, Nortje was walking in the outfield between overs when the aerial camera, which glides along movable cables, came whizzing up from behind and hit him on his left shoulder and back, knocking him to the ground.

Fortunately South Africa’s most impressive bowler on a torrid second day was able to get up immediately, but he gestured his incredulity at the umpire who had seen the incident.

While it has become the fashion in rugby for the broadcast producers to use camera footage for the benefit of the home team, it would surely be taking things too far, (even for Australians!) to use an expensive, 315kg camera to barrel into players.

While Nortje did not seem too bothered by the incident after the day’s play, he did say players have sounded the warning before about how low the spidercams sometimes travel.

“We’ve spoken before about how low the camera goes for certain interviews. I really don’t think it should be travelling head-high. They need to take Marco Jansen [2.07m tall] into consideration as well,” Nortje said with a smile.

“It knocked my shoulder and elbow and the medical staff will just monitor it. I just saw cables I turned and moved my head, saw the camera and it all happened a little quick. I didn’t really know what had hit me.”

Broadcasters Fox Cricket have made no public mention of the harrowing incident, but a Proteas spokeswoman said they did apologise to the team.

“They put it down to human error and the cam was disabled for the rest of the day. They’ll ensure that measures are put in place for the remainder of the match and series to ensure that it doesn’t get as low as it did today,” Proteas media manager Lucy Davey told The Citizen.

Coach Jake White has made an impassioned plea for the Springboks and the public to be patient with Johan Goosen as the Bulls flyhalf star makes a tentative return from a serious knee injury.

Goosen has only played two-and-a-half games of rugby since returning from 11 months out due to knee surgery, and he has understandably not exuded the same confidence as he usually has. Goosen will not be playing for the Bulls against Benetton in Treviso on Friday night because he now has a mild concussion.

The 30-year-old has however been called into the Springbok training camp for the end-of-year tour of Europe, and, with the dearth of flyhalves Jacques Nienaber is currently experiencing, White is hoping that the national coaches don’t push him too hard too soon and that the public don’t expect too much too soon from Goosen.

“I feel sorry for Johan,” White said on Thursday, “because of all the expectation that he will just arrive back in the team, wave his wand and be the best player in the URC competition and the alpha and omega of world rugby for the Springboks.

“He was on fire last year, but then he was out for 11 months and I have never coached any player who has been out that long and comes back and just pulls all the strings like before.

“Especially playing at flyhalf, where you have to make all the decisions, you’re basically the general. He does have a burning desire to get back to the Springbok team, but he is a long way off still from where he wants to be.

“But you don’t always get your opportunity at the time you decide, and he is tough enough and driven enough to take this one. I would have liked him to have had more games before his call-up,” White said.

If Goosen encounters no further injury headwinds between now and next year’s World Cup, White expressed the confidence that he would be able to win the prized tournament for South Africa at flyhalf.

“He’s coming into a very good, settled team, and I have no doubt he can win the World Cup for them. But at the moment he is probably five or six games short of his best, and he needs time, games and backing.

“I signed him for the Bulls until 2026 because I have a long-term plan with him, which is why I handle him like I do, I have more time. I’ve been very conservative because it will be very difficult for him to come back from another knee injury.

“I hope the public is as patient and understanding with him. It takes a while to fire at that level, it won’t just happen overnight,” the veteran coach said.

White confirmed that he had had no contact from Nienaber nor national director of rugby Rassie Erasmus over Goosen’s progress. That might just be because they are still sore over White’s criticism of Springbok selection earlier in the year.

New Springbok Elrigh Louw was apparently as excited as a young kid on his birthday to be back playing with the Bulls, who also welcome back Johan Goosen, making a long-awaited return from injury, for their United Rugby Championship match against Edinburgh at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.

Goosen’s return to play from a long-term injury will be watched keenly by a Springbok management who have something of a flyhalf crisis, but the 30-year-old will be playing fullback on Saturday, while Louw slots in at eighthman for the Bulls.

“Elrigh got hold of me two minutes after he had been told he was being released from the Springbok camp and said he really needs to play this weekend for the Bulls,” coach Jake White said at Loftus Versfeld on Friday.

“He’s young and just loves to play and he’s really looking forward to playing for the Bulls again, after a great hit-out last weekend against Argentina. I’m looking forward to that loose forward combination with him, Marcell Coetzee and Ruan Vermaak.

“We are easing Johan back into play, playing him at fullback gives him the chance to get into the game without having to control everything from Minute One. We’re being conservative.

“We’ll find the right time for him to slot back at flyhalf, but he won’t last 80 minutes. We want to keep him out of the firing line a bit, but I’m sure he’ll try push his way into 10 at times,” White explained.

Both teams are coming off good starts to the URC season, with the Bulls having beaten the Lions 31-15 at Ellis Park and Edinburgh thumping the Dragons 44-6. But White believes his team are going to have to raise the bar against Edinburgh, who he feels are more equipped to fully punish the moments of looseness they showed last weekend. The Lions made some rookie mistakes on attack.

“We can’t be inaccurate against Edinburgh, give them the same opportunities we gave the Lions, because they will be better organised and more difficult to keep out. They are a good side.

“We will have to play well, they’re one of the sides we didn’t beat last season, so we know we have got to be up for it. We weren’t great last week, but we got the job done.

“But Edinburgh have a lot of experience, they are well-coached and they move the ball around, they try to go around you. They have some internationals who have played World Cups, Six Nations every year, so that gives them confidence.

“They are a group that has played together a lot and we cannot underestimate them. They also have four South African props, who I’m sure will be important,” White said.

Bulls team:Johan Goosen, Cornal Hendricks, Lionel Mapoe, David Kriel, Stravino Jacobs, Chris Smith, Zak Burger; Elrigh Louw, Ruan Vermaak, Marcell Coetzee (CAPT), Ruan Nortje, Walt Steenkamp, Mornay Smith, Johan Grobbelaar, Gerhard Steenekamp. IMPACT -Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Simphiwe Matanzima, Francois Klopper, Janko Swanepoel, Marco van Staden; Embrose Papier, Morne Steyn, Stedman Gans.