4-Nations High Expectations

The SPAR SA National Women’s Hockey Team departed for a Four Nations Tournament in Dublin, Ireland late on Saturday evening, and national coach Jenny King is positive about her team’s prospects for the encounter, also featuring world no. three Germany, Scotland and hosts Ireland.

“I think there’s a little bit of excitement,” said King shortly before the team’s departure from the OR Tambo Airport. “It’s been a while since we’ve had some international competition, a four-and-a-half month lay-off, and we’ve had a very good training camp here at the Pretoria High Performance Centre, I think there’s a bit of a calm confidence about the side.

“Our tests results have been outstanding and everybody’s injury-free,” said King. “The team’s looking good, they’re very fit at the moment, and I think that’s possibly where we may just have the edge.”

King was quick to draw attention to the positives gained for her charges, following the series of inbound international hockey teams in Stellenbosch during the summer holiday season.

“It’s actually been surprising for me to see how the team has grown in maturity, not only just personality-wise, but also tactically and skill-ability. I’m really putting it down to those 14 internationals we played.

“And particularly having played the Dutch,” continued King, “Even though we were thoroughly beaten, it made players aware of skills we didn’t have, and they’ve definitely gone out, and tried to acquire them. I think that January was a turning point for our team.

“We started against the Dutch, and ended against Canada, so the expectations were that our results would become better. But we did play against Canada and Ireland with an extremely young side, we left all our senior players out, so that’s where I saw the biggest development coming in the team,” said King.

The series won’t present South Africa an opportunity to gain World Ranking points, as it’s regarded as a local four-nation event, rather than a major tournament, but the South African team have targets which may be more important than a purely points-focused approach.

“Well, I think there’s quite a lot of pressure for us to beat them (Scotland and Ireland), because although we’re only ranked one point ahead of them, their expectation is that we should beat them.

“We come up against Ireland first up after a four-and-a-half month break from international hockey; it might be a really tough one. But we’re really aiming to make the final, and definitely get one point against Germany. That would make it a very successful tour for us.