WITH the Africa u21 Hockey Championships due to start in Windhoek next week, Namibia’s men and women’s teams are well prepared and ready for the challenge.
The African Junior Championships will serve as qualifiers for the 2016 Junior World Cups to be held in Chile in November (men) and India in December (women).
The winners and runners-up in both the men and women’s competitions at the Africa Championships will automatically qualify for the World Cup, joining 14 other teams from Europe (6), Asia (4), Oceania (2) and Pan America (2).
The Namibian men and women’s teams, who are coached by Trevor Cormack and his wife Shayne, respectively, have been training and preparing for more than six months now and are ready to give their best.
According to Trevor, both the men and women’s squads were already incorporated into high performance national squads last year.
“We called the u21’s up to the high performance squads in November last year, but some of them have already been practising with the senior national sides since July. By September we called up the u16’s and filtered them in to see if some of them could make it to the u21 squad but also to keep the u21s on their toes. So since last year September we’ve been practising five days a week,” he said.
“I can’t ask for better preparation, other than it’s difficult to prepare as a team when some of your players are studying in South Africa. But the players in South Africa have all made SA varsity squads so they are practising intensely at a high level as well, so other than the team dynamic, I think preparation-wise its the best we could have asked for,” he added.
The Men’s u21 side has played several warm-up matches including two against the senior men’s national side, with the u21’s winning one 4-1 and losing one 4-3.
Trevor said that South Africa and Egypt would start as the favourites.
“South Africa are definitely the favourites – they have been preparing since last year when they came fourth in their Inter Provincial Tournament, while they also played a test series in South Africa. Egypt is always a danger and some people say that their u21 team is even better than their senior team, so they will be strong. From my side there are not high expectations although the hope is that we can perform to the best of our ability,” he said.
On paper, Namibia’s women’s side have a better chance of making the top two, since Egypt will not be sending a women’s team. South Africa are once again the favourites, while it is expected that Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia will be the leading contenders for the second spot.
“I expect that we can do quite well at this tournament and I think we have the ability to finish in the top two,” Shayne said.
“If we manage to get over the mental hurdle and the expectations, we do have the talent and the ability to end in the top two, but I also have a lot of respect for Zimbabwe and Zambia,” she added.
“In sport you can never underestimate even the underdogs so you’ve got to take every day as it comes, but the expectation would be that they have to play for that second spot and I think their chances are good,” Trevor added.
It has meanwhile been announced that Kenya and Malawi have now also withdrawn from the tournament, joining Ghana who already withdrew last month, while the participation of Nigeria is still unclear.
The format of the tournament was originally supposed to consist of two groups, but with the latest withdrawals, it will now be played on a round robin basis, with the top two teams qualifying for the finals.
The confirmed countries so far are Namibia, South Africa, Egypt (men), Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Tanzania.
