Banyana Banyana progressed on Sunday with another win in their All Africa Games campaign, this time a 3-1 win over Ethiopia, and speaking to gsport on Monday, Fran Hilton-Smith expressed her happiness with the team’s performance.
“I’m very happy with the state of affairs now, because obviously we want to win the All Africa Games, but our priority is the Olympics, and this gives us the perfect testing ground to see how we’re doing,” said Hilton-Smith.
“We won 3-1, with goals being scored by Antonio Carelse, a really great goal from a corner kick, which put us 1-0 up till half-time. Then in the second half they equalised, and then we went ahead by a goal by Belinda Nkosi, and finished off by a goal by Portia Modise.”
With the exception of Janine van Wyk, who was taken out in a tackle in which she picked up a serious knee injury, the rest of the squad is in good form.
Playing the whole match for the first time in three games, skipper Modise will be glad to be back in the goals tally again, but even more happy at the good form her team is demonstrating, despite the intensely hot weather conditions.
With this win over Ethiopia, Banyana now progress to face Ghana in the tournament’s semi-finals on Wednesday. “We were glad to get them,” commented Hilton-Smith, “Because the other option was Algeria, and they have such a huge support-base, that to play against them is going to be extremely difficult.”
Arch-rivals Nigeria, against whom Banyana drew 2-all in their opening encounter more than a week ago, will now face the home-based team with their influential supporter base.
But the match practice that the senior South African squad it getting is for the best, considering the upcoming Olympic qualifiers in the next few weeks.
“I’m very happy, because after our Olympic Qualifier against Nigeria (in Pretoria) on the 28th, we then face Ethiopia on the 11th August here (at home), and on the 24th of August we face Ghana here,” continued Hilton-Smith.
“So it’s a perfect thing for me, because we want to test ourselves against Ghana with the team we have now, to see what we need to do, or if we can beat them, which I’m sure we can.
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