KZN Coastal u18A head coach Cameron Mackay said his team should take a handful of positive lessons from the SASHOC National Week after they finished in third place at the recently concluded tournament in Bloemfontein.
Mackay’s side pulled off a hard-fought 1-0 win on the final day against Southern Gauteng A to match the bronze medal they won in 2023 at the same venue.
Their 2024 campaign was, however, a lot tougher than last year’s, despite the KZN boys finishing in the same position.
In 2023, Coastal ran rampant against their opponents in Pool B, winning all five of their round-robin matches to cruise into the semi-finals.
In the last four, they went down 3-4 on penalties against the eventual runners-up Southern Gauteng A after the teams had played to a 1-1 draw.
After that strong showing, KZN Coastal was regarded as one of the favourites to reach the semi-finals from a tough Pool B this time around, but it was far from a smooth run for the team. Their week was characterised by missed opportunities, late comebacks, 50/50 calls not going their way, and lapses of concentration when it mattered the most.
In their five pool matches, they recorded only one win, against Eastern Province A. They didn’t lose, though, drawing their other four games, which saw them into the final four by the skin of their teeth after results on the last day of pool play went their way.
They will rue three matches, in particular, where they were in command but allowed their opponents to claw back a share of the spoils.
In their opening match against the hosts, Southern Free State A, Coastal grabbed the lead through a Josh Beck goal and dominated proceedings but allowed the hosts to seal a 1-1 draw with four minutes remaining, courtesy of a Nkhahle Sematlane goal.
Against their rivals, KZN Inland A, Mackay’s side led 1-0 through a Tyrique Cloete goal, but they then ceded the lead to Inland. Trent Jessop struck four minutes from time, however, to salvage a 2-2 draw.
Then, they drew 4-4 draw against Southern Gauteng A, a result which, no doubt, was frustrating for Mackay and his coaching staff.
At half-time, Coastal, playing some enterprising hockey, led 4-2, but that lead evaporated in the second half as goals by Devin Wax and Matt Eichweber helped the Gauteng side to a draw.
After claiming third, however, Mackay put a positive spin on his charges’ efforts. “It’s always nice to end on a positive,” he told SuperSport Schools Plus. “Sometimes you can make a final and lose that, and that can become a negative, even though we would’ve loved to be in the final.
“I think the boys put in a good performance. I don’t think we started well, but we were dominant for the majority of the match, and the guys stuck to the game plan quite nicely.”
Even though KZN Coastal didn’t win as many games as they would have expected, Mackay felt the players showed character and improvement. “The team grew from game to game,” he said. “I don’t think things went our way during the week, but it was nice to, at least, have the matric guys, who some won gold in the u16s, finish off with a medal.”
One of Coastal’s big issues during the week was getting the ball into the back of the net. In 2023, they scored 14 goals. This year, that total decreased by two, with their 12 goals coming from eight field goals and four penalty corners.
Looking back on the competition, Mackay felt his side wasn’t too far behind the finalists, Western Province, and Boland. However, he suggested that schools within the Durban region, working in conjunction with the province’s high-performances structures, would need to carve out a plan to improve their forward play.
“The biggest thing for us in KZN is we’re lacking goal-scoring forwards,” he admitted. “We’ve got good forwards; they all do their jobs well. I don’t know what the answers are. I think our competition in Durban at the moment is so tight that we don’t have teams winning by 6-0, 7-0, 8-0 margins.
“It looks like our guys aren’t getting enough chances to score, but we’ve got to find how we bridge the gap with our forwards compared to the Cape schools.
“That’s been our biggest learning in the last couple of years – just looking at how we can bridge that gap and finding ways to do our HP (High Performance) a bit better.
“We’ve got a big pool of hockey players also doubling up with cricket, so maybe that’s something we have to look into,” he concluded.
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