Shumbas Hockey Club holds trials to gear up for a new season

The sound of hockey sticks striking balls echoed across the Randburg AstroTurf as young women and men took centre stage at Shumbas Hockey Club’s trials. With the new league season approaching, the trials gave new hockey lovers a chance to join the teams and represent the badge with pride.

From the first whistle to the last, players showcased their skills in small-sided matches. Every pass, tackle and shot carried weight, as hopefuls aimed to catch the eye of the technical team.

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The trials assessed individual skill, teamwork, discipline, and game intelligence. Coaches rotated players in different positions to test them for the coming season.

Head of coaches, Lukhanyo Makeleni, explained that they had pre-season for about four weeks, during which everyone had the opportunity to come down and train, and this was the first round of trials.

“From the first round of trials, what we were trying to achieve was to obviously get a high-performance group, which will be about 45 players, and then we’ll have a group of threes and fours. From there, they’ll fight to make whatever side they can make, and then from there we’ll get into teams, and the league begins very soon.”

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Makeleni said they were looking for players who do the simple things and focus on the basics.

“Sometimes it’s not what you do on the ball. It’s more about what you do off the ball. It’s tricky at trials. No one passes the ball to anyone because everyone wants to be noticed.

I think we’ve moved away from that grouping of trying to see who’s most skilled, and we’re lucky as I’m involved with the national side, so we know a lot of the high-performance players, so that at least we have the advantage of that.”

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