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Ellina Mhlanga-Senior Sports Reporter
THE hockey development series ended on Sunday in Harare with the senior men and women’s teams emphasising the importance of the event for the build-up for the Road to Paris Olympics Qualifiers.
Hosted by the Hockey Association of Zimbabwe at St John’s Astro Turf, the series featured Under-13, Under-15, Under-16, Under-18, men and women select sides and the two countries senior men and women teams.
The senior men and senior women teams from both countries are preparing for the Olympic Qualifiers scheduled to run from October 29 to November 5 in South Africa.
They played a total of three matches during this series. Zimbabwe men’s side were held to a 1-1 draw in the first match last Friday and lost 3-0 the following day before wrapping up the event with 0-0 draw on Sunday.
However, the women side dominated their opponents when beating Zambia 5-4 on Day One. They were more emphatic in their second and third assignments thumping the Zambians 4-0 in the second match and securing a 5-2 win on the last day.
Zimbabwe men’s side coach Tongai Mukwewa noted that there were some improvements from the team especially in their last game but pointed out they still need to work on their finishing.
“We are not scoring goals, I mean if you look at our performance for the whole weekend we have only scored one goal and that’s really not enough.” With two months to go before their participation at the Olympic Qualifiers, Mukwewa underlined the importance of more international warm-up games before the event.
“So I think the key thing is we need to be playing more internationals because when you go for a big tournament like that without several internationals before that, you don’t get to test your team against quality opposition. So we need to be playing quality opposition more.
“And that way our players are exposed to the top level game over a period of time rather than now and then two months later you expect to perform at your best. So we need to be playing more internationals and that’s really the hope that we will manage to do that before the final tournament,” said Mukwewa.
Zimbabwe women’s team co-captains Farirai Nengare and Nicolle Grant said the series has been helpful and shared the same sentiments on the need for more international matches.
“So it’s quite helpful for us to be able to gauge what it will be like in the next tournament in October because usually here we are playing club hockey and it’s a bit of a lower level and we are not playing together.
“We are training against the men’s team or the Under-21 ladies, so it’s quite hard to gauge where we are on an international scale without this series. So playing Zambia has been quite helpful for us to moving forward,” said Nengare.
Grant acknowledged that they still have a lot of work to do before their next assignment.
“I think we need to build momentum and I think we need to build a strong squad to choose a final team from. But behind the scenes, and both on the field and off the field there is a lot of work to do. We also need more exposure.
“We need to play more international games and that’s the only way we are going to keep improving and eventually in South Africa to then beat the world or at least compete with the world. So a lot of work to do.”
Zambia women’s team coach Floyd Chomba also believes the series was a good platform to assess his team.
“I think the event was a very good event, good exposure, also good test for the women. They lost all the three games but also that shows how much more work that needs to be done,” said Chomba. This is the second year, HAZ, have hosted the series which is being used to develop the sport in both Zimbabwe and Zambia.
Online Reporter