Namibia’s senior women’s indoor hockey coach Erwin Handura is satisfied with his players’ fitness levels, but says there is more work to be done ahead of the Indoor Hockey World Cup set for 2 to 6 February 2022 in Liège, Belgium.
Handura told New Era Sport on the sidelines of a training session yesterday at Windhoek Showgrounds they have had various training camps over the past two months, but the team is not yet ready for the tournament.
The team had a training camp in Swakopmund from 9 to 12 December and another one in Windhoek from 14 to 16 December.
“These were all of great importance as it helped to ensure the fitness level we wanted. Despite that, we still need to work on goalkeeping, attacking and defensive patterns. We have to work on our set-pieces, such as free hits outside the circle, how to defend and how to attack,” he said.
“We have to work on how to defend long corners and attack, as well as penalty corners, which is the most important part where we scored a lot of goals in the previous World Cup in 2018 in Berlin, Germany. So, we still have to finalise in that department.”
The team will depart for the Netherlands on 15 January to play two friendly games against that nation.
Handura stipulated that the goal is to finish in the top three at the World Cup.
“We are currently ranked 9th in the world and we would like to improve the ranking at the end of the tournament. We want to finish top three at the tournament, and that’s possible with the preparation and readiness of all our players.”
Meanwhile, the team practised with only eight players yesterday as two have tested positive for Covid-19, while two others are still caught up with work commitments.
Namibia is drawn in Group B alongside the Netherlands, Belarus, Austria, Belgium and southern African neighbours South Africa. They booked their ticket to Belgium after winning the Indoor Africa Cup in Durban early last year.
The squad: Petro Stoffberg, Barencia Diamond, Magreth Mengo, Sunelle Ludwig, Gillian Hermanus, Azaylee Phillander, Caitlin Gillies, Jivanka Kruger, Kaela Schimming, Armin van Staden, Danja Meyer and Jaimie Gillies.
Non-travelling members: Tara Myburg, Anthea Coetzee, Jaimie Henckert, Jahntwa Kruger and Britta Haenzel.
- mkambukwe@nepc.com.na