After a challenging opening weekend in the Varsity Hockey tournament, the NMMU-Madibaz women’s team will be taking a positive attitude into the second half of the competition in Potchefstroom on Friday.<\/p>\n
Madibaz defeated University of KwaZulu-Natal in their first match in Stellenbosch, but lost the remaining three games to end the weekend near the bottom of the log.<\/p>\n
However, coach Michael van Rensburg said the team would be motivated to turn the tide in their remaining matches, having learnt much from playing against the country’s top varsity sides.<\/p>\n
“The girls have been really positive and are fully aware of our long-term vision,” he said. “The first weekend was incredibly tough but they have held their heads high.<\/p>\n
“We are looking forward to the second weekend as we look to improve on the performances we gave in Stellenbosch.”<\/p>\n
Van Rensburg added that a priority for the squad would be to keep working on their fitness and conditioning.<\/p>\n
“Statistically we played our best hockey in the first and third quarters when we were fresh.<\/p>\n
“It was clear that in the second and fourth quarters we were fatigued and this is where the opposition targeted us.<\/p>\n
“We have come up with short-term solutions to the problem, but our conditioning is most definitely a crucial area for us as we look ahead to the USSA (University Sport South Africa) week at the end of June.”<\/p>\n
With their opponents piling on the pressure, Van Rensburg said they would also be looking at improving their defensive systems.<\/p>\n
“We weren’t anywhere near our best in this area and we reviewed this during the week.<\/p>\n
“The other facet we would look to improve on is our general spatial awareness and improved decision making on-field.”<\/p>\n
He said they would continue to work on the processes they had in place and he was confident the team would grow as a unit.<\/p>\n
“Tactically we will look to address certain areas. As mentioned, our defence will be looked at as well as our execution in the final attacking third of the field.<\/p>\n
“Another focus will be how to best use the periods of play when we do have a numerical advantage due to either cards been issued or in the power play stage.”<\/p>\n
Van Rensburg said he could see a definite improvement in the women’s teams thanks to tournaments such as Varsity Hockey and the Premier Hockey League.<\/p>\n
He felt, however, that the timing of the tournaments needed to be addressed to avoid “potential burnout from the high workload in a short space of time”.<\/p>\n
“But, for us as an institution, it is vital that we attend the top tournaments.<\/p>\n
“Despite the results, the ladies have learnt a lot and it will only stand us in good stead as we move forward into the new era we are creating for ourselves.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After a challenging opening weekend in the Varsity Hockey tournament, the NMMU-Madibaz women’s team will be taking a positive attitude into the second half of the competition in Potchefstroom on Friday. Madibaz defeated University of KwaZulu-Natal in their first match in Stellenbosch, but lost the remaining three games to end the weekend near the bottom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1768,1937,1771,2018,2613,1770,1966],"class_list":["post-5465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sport","tag-hockey","tag-hockey-news","tag-madibaz","tag-madibaz-hockey","tag-michael-van-rensburg","tag-nmmu","tag-varsity-hockey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}