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Durban Girls’ College crowned St Mary’s Hockey Festival champions

By CS Chiwanza , in Hockey | Featured Hockey | News , at 2024-04-07 Tags: , , ,

The 2024 St Mary's Hockey Festival champions, Durban Girls' College.
The 2024 St Mary’s Hockey Festival champions, Durban Girls’ College.

Durban Girls’ College (DGC) played exceptionally well to defeat Eunice 3-2 in a thrilling final of the St Mary’s Hockey Festival in Johannesburg on Sunday. It was a fitting humdinger after four days of absorbing, unpredictable action.

With the win, DGC joins St Mary’s Waverley and Oranje in a very small class of teams that have won the title three or more times. The Durban school, which finished seventh last year, previously lifted the trophy in 2006 and 2009.

Relive the final on SuperSport Schools

DGC’s St Mary’s campaign was defined by their discipline, their ability to connect well in all phases of the game, and their understanding of each player’s role. However, those parameters did not turn them into a rigid outfit.

“They have also been agile whenever the situation has needed them to adapt. They have not been unwilling or shy to play outside of their comfort zones. They have tried new systems and have been willing to change our press. They have been dynamic,” DGC coach Chardinay Penniston told Supersport Schools Plus.

While Penniston’s team was ambitious and hungry for success, they headed into the St Mary’s Festival not quite where they wanted to be after a difficult run of games in which they did not tick all the boxes.

“Our progression has been a little slower than in previous years, but it has been more meaningful,” Penniston said.

The KZN side focussed on taking it one game at a time, choosing not to look beyond that. However, that changed on Saturday evening when they walloped Eunice 4-0 in their final pool match to book a semi-final spot. That allowed them to dream for a moment.

The victory convinced them that they could go all the way and lift the title. Up until that point, Eunice had enjoyed an unbeaten run at the festival.

Though young, coach Nika Coertzen’s team had shown that they were worthy successors to their predecessors, the dominant, all-conquering Eunice team of 2023.

The majority of the 2024 unit was far less experienced, with fewer than 20 caps per player. That was counter-balanced by five matric learners, each with more than 100 caps. Eunice was led by the reliable Trusten Barnard and inspired by the prolific Bianca Rees-Gibbs, who scored an outstanding hat-trick on Saturday, in a gripping 3-2 win over St Anne’s.

Penniston also drafted a young side for the tournament. Like Coertzen, she had five players in matric, four grade 11s and a few grade nine learners.

Their Saturday evening win over Eunice had shown DGC that although they were exceptionally talented, the Bloemfontein side was not indomitable. They identified Eunice’s weaknesses and exploited them, firing four goals into the net while keeping a clean sheet. Memories of that encounter spurred them on in the final.

Only two minutes into the title-decider, DGC breached Eunice’s defences with a brilliant reverse stick shot from Ruby Kraus lifting them into a 1-0 lead.

The match was already moving at a high pace, but the tempo picked up as Eunice went on the hunt for an equaliser and they got it shortly afterwards through Megan Joubert. She was on the far post to direct the ball into the backboard after a bumbled penalty corner push out was neatly cleaned up.

However, Barnard and her teammates’ joy was short-lived as Kraus again produced some reverse stick magic to put DGC ahead for a second time.

Against a dangerous opponent like Eunice, DGC knew that the job was far from done, and a one-goal difference was a distinctly uncomfortable advantage. The Bloemfontein school took the game to their Durban opposition, but Emily Macquet, the DGC captain, marshalled her players with authority, to repel wave after wave of Eunice’s attacks.

However, the pressure told and one of those attacks earned Eunice a penalty stroke. They turned to their leading goal scorer, Bianca Rees-Gibbs. She stepped up and calmly converted.

Based on their results over the past two years, DGC was the underdog in the tie, and in true underdog fashion, they were not disheartened by Eunice twice fighting back to level the scores. They responded by going on the offensive again.

They made up for their lack of experience by employing a high work rate and boundless belief that they had what it takes to win. That unrelenting positivity was rewarded four minutes from time when they scored a brilliant second-phase short corner goal through Tara Pakendorf.

Over the four days of the festival, DGC coach Penniston had kept her message consistent: the big things for her team were consistency, trust, and pulling together as a unit.

In the final minutes of the title-decider, they were consistent in their defensive structure. they trusted one another when it mattered most, and they pulled together as one until the final whistle blew to end the match.

CS Chiwanza
error: Sorry ol' chap, those shenanigans are not permissible.