THE Namibian national women’s hockey team achieved another first this week when it was ranked tenth in the world according to the latest world rankings released by the International Hockey Federation.
Namibia, which is already the top ranked African nation, climbed into the world’s top ten for the first time, thereby becoming the first major Namibian sport code to achieve this accolade.
Germany lead the world rankings, followed by the Netherlands and Belarus, while Namibia is the top ranked African country, followed by South Africa who are ranked 14th in the world, and Zimbabwe who are ranked 33rd.
National coach Erwin Handura said it was a singular achievement.
Ït’s the first time that we have been ranked in the world’s top ten – thats a remarkable achievement, which has never been done before by any major Namibian team, like our rugby, soccer or cricket teams,” he said.
“We can even go higher on that list up to about sixth place, because we must still play our continental qualifier, where a further 425 points will be up for grabs, while all the other top countries have played theirs,” he added.
Poland is currently ranked sixth on 1 338 points, followed by Switzerland (1 100), Austria (988) and Australia, which like Namibia’, is on 975 points.
At the 2018 Indoor World Cup Namibia beat Ukraine 3-2 which is currently ranked fourth in the world, and drew 3-3 to ninth-placed Australia and Handura believes that they can beat most of the top ten ranked teams.
“I’ve been studying the top teams and feel that we can beat teams like Austria, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Belarus and Poland. Even the top nations Germany and the Netherlands, they have a strong pressing game, but they leave a lot of gaps in defence and I think we can exploit that,” he said.
Namibia’s men’s team is currently ranked 16th in the world and second in Africa, behind South Africa (11th in the world) and ahead of Zimbabwe (24th in the world).
The national women’s squad has, meanwhile, returned to training following the relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions with weekly training sessions and matches, while the players are also following their own fitness programmes.
A new date for the continental qualifier for the World Cup must still be established, but Handura said he hoped that it could be set for February next year.
Ï spoke to South Africa’s coach last week and they would like to host the Afcon qualifier in February. But the problem is that the outdoor Southern African region qualifier will be held in Zimbabwe from 19 to 26 February, where the top two teams will qualify for the outdoor Afcon Championships. So we hope the Africa Hockey Federation will move the southern region qualifier to April or May so that we can prepare for the indoor qualifier now,” he said.
He added that he hoped to organise some test matches against top ranked nations ahead of the Afcon qualifier.
“I believe we have a team to beat South Africa, but it’s all about the preparation and if you don’t prepare well you cannot expect to do well. We are busy talking to countries like Ukraine and the Czech Republic to see if we can maybe organise a test series in January next year – I’ve spoken to their coaches and they are interested,” he said.
Handura, meanwhile added four more players to the national squad in Azaylee Philander and Caitlin and Jaimie Gillies of Saints, and Jahntwa Kruger of Windhoek Old Boys.
The national squad is as follows:
Petro Stoffberg, Berencia Diamond, Sonet Crous, Magreth Mengo, Gillian Hermanus, Sunelle Ludwig, Durè Boshoff, Kiana Cormack, Kaela Schimming, Jivanka Kruger, Jerrica Bartlett, Celè Wessels, Danja Meyer, Anri Els, Caitlin Gillies, Tara Myburgh, Lidia Simon, Zanne Mari Niemand, Azaylee Philander, Jaimie Gillies, Jahntwa Kruger.
