NAMIBIA’s national women’s hockey team will qualify for next year’s Indoor Hockey World Cup if the African qualifiers cannot take place due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Africa Hockey Federation (AfHF) on Saturday issued a press release stating that the African qualifier which was due to take place in Durban, South Africa next month, has been postponed until September. It, however, added that if the corona situation prevents this from happening, then the indoor world rankings will be used to determine who will represent Africa at the Indoor World Cup, scheduled to take place in Liege, Belgium from 3 to 7 February 2021.
In such a scenario, Namibia’s women’s team will qualify for the Indoor World Cup since they are currently the top-ranked African nation with a ranking of 11th in the world. Their closest rivals are South Africa, currently ranked 16th in the world, while Zimbabwe is the next best at 33rd in the world.
Namibia represented Africa at the last Indoor World Cup in Berlin, Germany in 2018 after beating South Africa in a thrilling penalty shootout in Swakopmund the previous year, and gave a fine account of itself, finishing ninth out of the 12 competing nations, and beating Ukraine, which is currently ranked fourth in the world, along the way.
In the case of the men, South Africa would, however, qualify if it comes down to world rankings, since they are the top-ranked African team at 11th in the world, followed by Namibia at 17th and Zimbabwe at 23rd.
Namibia’s national women’s coach, Erwin Handura, welcomed the news.
“If they have to take the world rankings into account, that will obviously be great news for us since we are the top-ranked nation on the continent. But we are also confident of winning the African qualifier if it still takes place,” he said.
“We have shown that we can beat the best on the continent and our squad has grown in confidence. At the last World Cup we beat Ukraine and the United States, and drew to Australia and Russia, so if you believe in yourself you can do it, provided you train hard,” he added.
The national women’s squad, meanwhile, has been hard at work, with the players training individually from home, and Handura said he expected them to be fit.
“The girls have been training on their own during the lockdown period and have been sending in their running times to me. As soon as we get back together again they will undergo a fitness test, so I trust them and I don’t think they will be unfit when they return,” he said.
He added that the squad was mostly made up of young players, but that the experienced Maggy Mengo will once again captain the side.
“Maggy is back as the captain and has been training with the squad since October. She is a highly respected player and influential captain so her presence will help the squad a lot.”
South Africa has, meanwhile, announced its training squads for the African qualifier, and their women’s squad shows an interesting newcomer in the former Namibian national player, Dunelle van Taak.
Van Taak, who studies at Potchefstroom University, last represented Namibia in 2016, but has since served out her four-year waiting period to acquire South African citizenship.
Handura congratulated her, but was not too perturbed about her loss.
“I’m happy for Dunelle; she has been looking forward to this for the past few years, so now she can play at the highest level again and I wish her all the best.”
“She is a quality player and she will definitely add value to their side, but we are also a quality side and we qualified for the World Cup without her, so I’m not too concerned about that,” he added.
The Africa Hockey Federation added that the Junior Africa Cup, which was due to take place in Accra, Ghana from 13 to 20 September, will also be postponed to a new date which must still be determined, in the first trimester of 2021.
The winning countries will qualify for the 2021 Junior World Cup which takes place in South Africa for the women, and in India for the men during the fourth quarter of 2021.
Regarding the Africa Cup of Nations, the AfHF said that the three regional qualifiers are being put on hold until further notice, and that revised dates might be in the fourth quarter of 2020 or the first quarter of 2021.
