Kayla de Waal of South Africa, Paris-Gail Isaacs of South Africa and Onthatile Zulu of South Africa celebrate their first goal. Picture: REUTERS, Anushree Fadnavis
The South African women’s hockey team’s medal aspirations have been dashed after their 2-1 defeat to Great Britain at the Paris Olympics on Wednesday.
Giles Bonnet’s side are now the only winless team after three matches in Pool B. It was Great Britain’s first victory of the competition and kept the Tokyo bronze medallists’ hopes alive of progressing to the quarter-finals.
Just as in the previous matches when they took the lead against both Australia and Argentina, the South Africans started well through another courageous goal from forward Kayla de Waal. The 24-year-old Stellenbosch University student has not been afraid to put her body on the line at this Olympics, and once again threw herself in front of a defender to deflect a short corner into the Great Britain net to open the scoring for South Africa in the first quarter.
The British side, however, responded strongly in the second with a flurry of short corners, which eventually led to Amy Costello’s equaliser.
South Africa were further hampered when teenager Taheera Augousti was handed a green card for an indiscretion shortly before half-time. “England came really hard at us. Both teams needed a win. They just fought harder, especially in the second quarter,” South African goalkeeper Anelle Lloyd said.
“We need to do some work on defending those goals, and also make up some more goals in front so we can get a win.”
After the interval, it was one-way traffic as the South Africans were put under immense pressure by Team GB. The winner eventually came from a delightful overhead pass sent into the SA circle that was expertly picked up by British forward Hannah French.
French showed brilliant control and technical ability to bring the ball down to the turf before slapping the ball thunderously past Lloyd in the SA goal on the bounce.
Veteran playmaker Quanita Bobbs fought valiantly for the South Africans, attempting to force a short corner in the final whistle, to no avail.
“It was a tough game. We gave it our all. It was a game we wanted to come out really hard, and it’s unfortunate that we lost 2-1. I think we worked really hard in the first two quarters, and then let it slip in the last two,” said defender Edith Molikoe.
“But it has been really exciting to see how we’ve come out to play in this tournament. I am keen to see what we are going to do in the next two games.“We all want a result, and I am very eager for us to implement that.”
South Africa face Spain on Thursday in their penultimate Pool B clash (5.45pm), before their last match on Saturday against the US (1.15pm).
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