SA hockey team showing improvement but continue to battle in FIH Pro League

Cape Town - The South African men’s hockey team continues to find the going uphill in their debut FIH Pro League stint, but they have started showing improvement even though they suffered a 6-1 defeat to Germany in Potchefstroom on Thursday night.

South Africa started superbly and matched the No 5 world-ranked Germans in all facets of the game. SA (12th in the world rankings) staged several attacks deep into the opposition territory and created several scoring chances.

At halftime, the teams were level-pegging at 1-all.

Germany upped the ante in the second and launched countless attacks. This brought the best out of the SA defence but in the end, they ran out of steam and Germany scored five more goals.

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Experienced campaigner Dan Bell, who was a member of the team at last year's Olympics, said it was evident that the team was benefitting from playing against some of the world's strongest teams.

“We were very competitive in the first half, and we took them by surprise as we played some really good hockey," said Bell.

“In the second half, when it comes to top-level sport, you need to take your opportunities when they present themselves. When you don’t capitalise, and instead concede, then there’s a big shift in momentum. I think that that was the case for us in the second 30 minutes. We learnt a lot of lessons and I think that we are getting to the point that we’re playing competitive hockey.”

Bell said that the team are still learning many lessons.

“We know that we can compete. It’s about squeezing out these small margins but obviously, have such a massive impact on the game.

"We’re looking forward to a few days off and promise to come