Onthatile Zulu was one of the stars for SA on the recent tour of Malaysia, which they won 3-1.
Image: Red Bull
The national women’s outdoor hockey team has just returned from a successful Tour of Malaysia, where they won three of their four Test matches against the hosts.
New national team head coach Inky Zondi got his tenure off to a great start, winning his first three matches at the Bukit Jalil National Stadium in Kuala Lumpur 2-1, 6-1 and 3-2. Malaysia fought back to grab a consolation 2-1 win in the final Test.
“I thought it was a great tour from an access to players point of view and what we’re trying to achieve with the squad going forward,” Zondi said on Monday. “I’d say it was very successful.”
He said they used the first match to try to get new ideologies across to the players – how they want the play the game.
“The second game we were much better in terms of our execution and our tactical work. And I felt like we improved from game to game.
"It was really great to get the opportunity to do the work within the squad in terms of what we want to achieve going forward, not just on-field but off it as well. We spent time touching on those points in terms of the team we want to create and the environment that will hopefully create success by the time the 2026 World Cup comes around.”
Meanwhile, Malaysia’s patient counter-attacking style of hockey tested the South Africans.
“They are very organised, very compact and they’ve developed a lot as a real penalty corner threat, which we had to learn to counteract,” Zondi said.
“I was really happy with the uptake of our new style of play, which we’ve introduced. We also started to get more rhythm in our penalty corner. We need to empower specialists but it was nice to score some penalty corner goals.
“From an off-the-ball perspective we’re trying to be more defensively organised but robust in terms of creating opportunities in ball-winning moments. We feel we have forwards that can really be effective in counter-attacking moments. That was something had already started developing as a team before I became the coach.
“In addition to that, with the ball we’re trying to be more creative in how we create goal-scoring opportunities in the attacking circle. We want to be that more regular threat in the attacking circle with the emphasis that we can hopefully enhance and grow our set piece to be respected with the field play as well as the set-piece moments."
The national team coach was fortunate enough to be able to call on some of the players who starred for SA at last year's Olympic Games in Paris.
“From the style of play in terms of the way we want to attack and that kind of thing, a lot of the girls who have returned from the Olympic process were very valuable to us: players like Ongeziwe Mali, Onthatile Zulu, Ntsopa Mokoena," Zondi said.
"It is nice to see people that have come off a big event able to adapt to a new style of play and almost elevate it in the way they are. We want to highlight their strengths in terms of what they are talented at in terms of speed and flair. We’ve designed the structure to suit the players we have.”
That experience could again prove vital in two tournaments the South Africans are set to compete in later in the year: the continental qualifier for next year’s World Cup, and the Nations Cup 2 in Poland in the middle of June. Tours like the one to Malaysia can only help hone the team for the challenging tasks ahead.
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