SA hockey men on 6-1 loss to Germany: 'We know we can compete'

There's no doubt that the last few weeks have been a challenging period for the South African men's hockey team.

After some encouraging displays at the 2020 Olympics, including a 4-3 win against Germany and 10th place overall, the team went on to win the 2022 Afcon tournament in January.

However, their recent introduction to the FIH Hockey League has proved difficult, with the South Africans failing to register a win in six matches to date.

That said, there is no doubt that this is a team in transition with several players who were at the Olympics not currently available for selection.

Only 10 players from that squad are in the current squad, with Rassie Pieterse (161 caps) and Austin Smith (183 caps) having retired and eight others unavailable due to injury and various other reasons. 

For example, in their second clash against India last week, the hosts only had an average of 44 caps per player compared to an average of 97 per player for India.

After suffering some heavy defeats in the tournament so far, Thursday saw a much-improved performance from South Africa. 

Germany gained revenge for that Olympic defeat, running out 6-1 winners in Potchefstroom in a clash where the score probably wasn't a fair reflection of the game.

In fact, South Africa gave an excellent account of themselves as they held the Germans to 1-1 at half-time.

Dan Bell, who started the match, believes South Africa caught Germany by surprise early on.

"I think we were very competitive in the first half and took them by surprise a little bit," said Bell after the match.

In the second half, however, some missed opportunities and the fact that visitors took theirs put South Africa on the back foot, a fact acknowledged by Bell. 

"I think when you don't take your