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Ellina Mhlanga Senior Sports Reporter
THE national senior men’s field hockey team coach Niall Milner is fancying their chances at the Central-South Africa tournament that gets underway tomorrow at St John’s College in Harare.
The team got into camp last Friday for the final phase of their preparations.
The tournament that begins tomorrow is serving as a qualifier for both men’s and women’s teams to next year’s African Games. It is running up to Sunday.
Four countries — Namibia, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe — are competing. The top two teams from each category will advance to the African Games.
Milner said despite the limited time they have had with the team, they are confident of making the top two.
“It’s been good, the guys came into camp on Friday, we started work on Saturday and it’s going well. “Obviously, we expect to qualify for the African Games, so top two finish is the only result we are expecting this week.
“So for us we have had to work on our set-pieces and general play a lot. We haven’t had a lot of time with the guys and we are trying to make the most of it in this first five days before the qualifiers.
“I think they are getting there. We will be definitely ready by Wednesday, that’s our first game against Malawi. And they are doing well, the guys are pushing themselves to the limits and we expect good things from them,” said Milner. Milner conceded the first game against Malawi is going to be tricky since they are not sure how their opponents play compared to Zambia, whom they hosted in a series a few months ago.
“So we haven’t played against Malawi. We haven’t got any footage on them either, so we are not sure how they will set-up and come out. We will obviously see that in the first game.
“On the Zambian side, we had a series against them in April. So we know quite a lot more about them and our chances are high. It was a good series that we played, first series for this new side and I think a lot of them are stepping up and they should do well,” Milner said.
One of the players, Esau Mufandaedza, said they are looking forward to the tournament and believes playing at home should generate more interest for the sport.
“For us as players it creates more publicity. I think in the past years we have been like having tournaments outside the country. So I think for now playing at our home ground at least there are people who (will) come to watch and if they like what they see we can get more sponsorship. Zimbabwe will be represented in both the men’s and women’s sections.
The matches will be played in a round-robin format and the top two will then play the final.
Zambia, Malawi and Namibia were expected in the country yesterday.
Online Reporter