The inaugural FIH Hockey5s World Cup is flying previous, and the group stage has already met its conclusion. South Africa and Ukraine each took to the sphere with two wins out of two on day one and their battle was one for prime spot.
It was the South Africans who rocketed out the gates and produced a outstanding spell scoring 4 objectives in six minutes to canter into a big lead. Toni Marks tapped residence to offer the group a 1-0 lead and Dirkie Chamberlain scored when she bounced the ball off the wall onto the keeper’s kicker and into the again of the online.
It saved getting higher for the Africans when Teshawn de la Ray produced a beautiful run and end to make it 3-0. And earlier than the half-time break the South Africans made it 4. Toni Marks made an outstanding run-in entrance of the keeper and diverted it residence. 4-0 on the half-time break.
The second half didn’t have to attend lengthy for its first purpose. Dirkie Chamberlain was awarded a penalty stroke and the Olympian fired residence to stretch the lead once more. Ukraine pulled a purpose again. Shokalenko working round Cochrane and pulling it again into the online. Ukraine would have their final scoring motion when the ball bobbled residence to make it 5-2. It took the South Africans simply 20 seconds to re-instate the four-goal lead. Chamberlain firing residence from an acute angle with large energy to safe her hat-trick. Sealing a outstanding 6-2 win for the South Africans and the highest spot within the group.
The group are actually the fourth South African group to qualify for a Quarter Closing of an FIH World Cup matching the achievements of the SA Junior Ladies’s group in Potchefstroom in 2022, in addition to the lads’s and girls’s indoor groups on the FIH Indoor Hockey World Cup in Pretoria in 2023. It additionally permits the group the chance to dream of matching, and presumably beating, the achievements of the SPAR South Africa indoor hockey group on the indoor world cup the place they completed fourth after shedding the semi-finals.
The South Africans will face Malaysia within the Quarter Finals after the Asians held on to a 4-4 draw to remove Fiji on purpose distinction. The sport is on the market to stream on Watch.Hockey solely and will probably be at 08:20 South African time on Friday.