Investec South Africa quite confident to display a better performance in FIH Champions Challenge
The Investec South African women’s hockey side is pretty hopeful for a better show in their opening game against the Scotland at the ESB Electric FIH Champions Challenge tournament, which is being played at national Hockey Stadium, University College Dublin (UCD), in Dublin, Ireland. Eight teams which have been divided into two pools are participating in this prestigious tournament in Ireland which is held after every two years.
The Investec South African women have been working hard since last month to cope with the requirements and challenge of finishing at least at the second spot, which has been set by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC).
In this regard, the Investec South African women have a played a number of practice matches against some of the top international sides as well as in domestic clubs in Netherlands, Ireland and Spain. The team has displayed a mix performance during the European tour in which they lost their first two games against Spain and Netherlands, which were pretty close games. But they ended their European campaign of Test matches in a fine fashion by defeating one of the strongest provincial sides in Spain, Catalonia, and against Ireland in which they looked quite impressive by scoring a 3-1 victory over the Irish women.
On last Thursday, the Investec South African women defeated the Irish women in another practice match by 3-0, where the star performer for the Investec South Africa women team was the veteran striker, Pietie Coetzee, who scored a brace for the South Africans and thus became three steps closer to the world record of 220 goals scored by any female player in the history of women hockey. She will most probably be able to take that world record to her name as she has now scored 216 goals in 221 appearances throughout her luminous career before the start of this tournament. During her sparkling career she remained absent at the horizon of international hockey for almost five years which was her peak time.
Meanwhile, the Scottish team is stuffed with a lot of world-class players, but in their last meeting with the Investec South African women at the Commonwealth Games which were held in Delhi, India, eight months ago, they had to face a defeat by a narrow margin of 1-2.
The Investec South Africa women’s hockey team, which is has picked up the selection committee, consists of Marsha Marescia (capt), Pietie Coetzee, Mariette Rix, Ilse Davids, Marcelle Keet, Dirkie Chamberlain, Jen Wilson, Shelley Russell Lesle-Ann George, Nicolene Terblanche, Lisa Deetlefs, Lenise Marais, Kathleen Taylor, Kim Hubach, Tarryn Bright, Sulette Damons, Celia Evans and Sanani Mangisa.
Tags: