Namibia’s senior national outdoor men’s hockey team were on Monday night thrashed 13-0 by South Africa in their opening match of the 2022 African Cup of Nations underway in Accra, Ghana.

Namibia, who played the defending champions South Africa in the last match of the day, failed to score a single goal as they went down with the highest margin registered throughout the day.

South Africa, who were the dominant side in all the four quarters of the match, scored two goals in each of the opening three quarters, with four coming from penalty corners, while the other two were scored from open play.

The second quarter saw Namibia failing to capitalise after one South African player was sent to the sin bin for a foul. Namibia then missed the resulting penalty corner.

Despite being outclassed on the night, the Namibian team had some brilliant plays, as their goalkeeper, Roben Kambinda, managed to keep their opponents from scoring at will in the first half of the match.

The fourth and final quarter of the match saw a more determined South African team scoring seven goals as their opponents were tiring and had no reply to their fast-paced game and experience.

In an interview after the match, Namibia’s team captain, Tarrant Butcher, said South Africa brought their A-game.

“We expected this type of play from South Africa, who are the best team on the continent, but we will regard this game as a warm-up because we are expecting to do better against Kenya,” he said.

Meanwhile, Namibian team coach, Johan Weyhe, said playing the defending champions and a full squad that represented South Africa at the Olympics is not easy.

“Our legs ran out but this was a learning curve for the players and we hope we will do better against Kenya,” Weyhe said.

The winner of the Outdoor Africa Cup of Nations will represent the continent at the World Cup slated for India from 13 to 29 January 2023.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency