SA hockey skipper calls on team to be ‘brave’ against Germany

SA men’s hockey team coach Cheslyn Gie has called on his team to be “brave” in their crucial Olympic Games Pool B clash against Germany on Tuesday.

The South Africans have shown great fight and resilience in their opening two matches against the world’s two top-ranked teams, the Netherlands and Great Britain. A valiant 5-3 defeat to the Dutch was followed by a courageous 2-2 draw with the British.

In fact, the South Africans were unlucky not to take all three points from the Great Britain clash after Paul Revington’s team only managed a fortunate equaliser from a short corner with just 90 seconds remaining.

The South Africans protested vehemently to the referee that Great Britain had committed a foul in the build-up that led to the vital short corner – TV replays clearly indicated the ball hitting the back of the stick – but Gie’s side unfortunately had used up their referrals to have the decision overturned.

“Yes, we were unlucky, but the fact that we have a point in the bag is definitely good for us. It was always going to be tough playing against the No 1 and No 2 in the world in our first two matches. The players really stood up,” Gie said from Paris.

“Something we were really worried about was the fact that we don’t play the same number of international matches as the top sides, and whether we could maintain our quality and intensity two matches in a row.

“The (Great Britain game) was really good for us, in terms of taking steps in the right direction. We were very happy with the result. Obviously, the three points would have been first prize, but happy in the way the players have stepped up so much and so quickly.”

Gie does not want his team to focus on their misfortune, and has instead called them to deliver yet another spirited display against the Germans, who they famously beat at the last Olympics in Tokyo three years ago. Germany trounced hosts France 8-2 in their opening game before losing 2-0 to Spain over the weekend.

“We are asking the players to be brave and hopefully our bravery will pay off (against Germany),” Gie said.

“We’ve played them since the Olympics and they’ve beaten us, and both sides are really different from the last Olympics, so we don’t want to read too much into the Tokyo result.

“They are coming off a defeat to Spain and they’ll be hurting and will push us really hard by trying to stamp their authority on the game. We are preparing for that. Hopefully, we can stop their attacking plans and score some goals. The way we are playing is putting the teams under pressure.”

The South African team is blessed with an abundance of attacking talent up front in the form of captain Dayaan Cassiem, younger brother Mustapha, Keenan Horne and Bradley Sherwood, who all regularly create circle penetrations and goalscoring opportunities.

However, the focus in the preparation for this Olympics has been on improving the defensive aspect of their game, and Gie was certainly pleased with the effort against Great Britain.

“We’ve introduced a few new concepts to the team. We felt that we needed something different coming to the Olympics because teams obviously do their video analysis on us because we’ve played a certain way for the last 18 months,” Gie said.

“We’ve introduced a few things. It’s still a work in progress. Unfortunately, it does require time, because I feel that we can become a lot better and be more difficult for teams to score against us.

“After the first match, we spoke about not conceding too many goals, because in any game if you concede five goals, you are definitely going to struggle to win it. We wanted to work on it.

“The boys certainly put in a great shift defensively against Great Britain. (We were) a lot more patient in the tackles.”