Springfield welcomes quality field for pre-season festival

Paarl Gimnasium‘s first girls’ hockey side will get their 2025 season underway this weekend at the Springfield Convent School Pre-Season Festival in Cape Town.
The festival, now in its second edition, runs from 14–15 March and will see seven top teams from around the Western Cape battle for supremacy on the turf.
Last weekend, Wynberg Girls’ High, Paarl Girls’ High, St Cyprian’s School, Parel Vallei, and Springfield Convent School opened their seasons at the Spar Hockey Festival.
Those five teams will return to action at Springfield, where they’ll be joined by Paarl Gim and Rustenburg Girls’ High, who played two matches against Rhenish Girls’ High School over the past weekend.
It’ll be the first time that Gim takes to the turf under the leadership of head coach Danelle van Zyl, who is working with a young squad after Gim lost seven matrics at the end of 2024.
They open their season against Parel Vallei before taking on the hosts and St Cyprian’s School in their final match of the opening day.
On Saturday, they’ll play three matches, the most important one being the last against their local rivals, Paarl Girls’ High, whom they defeated 4-0 in last year’s interschools derby.
Another team to keep an eye out for at the festival is St Cyprian’s School. Coach Natalie Esteves’s side performed superbly at the Spar Hockey Festival and scored three wins and a draw in their four outings.
Those victories included defeats of Parel Vallei and Paarl Girls’ High, teams they will face again this weekend.
Speaking of Paarl Girls’ High, they’ll be confident and eager to test themselves after a promising showing last weekend. Despite not being at their best, coach Marc Landman’s troops recorded three wins and one loss.
Landman will use the festival as a further opportunity to learn more about his team and to continue to implement his coaching philosophy.
The hosts will want to bounce back at their home festival after a rather slow start last weekend where they lost three matches but managed a comprehensive 2-0 victory over Somerset College.

Coach Ziyaad Ismail knows the importance of building momentum early in the season, and there’s no more inviting place to do that than on home soil.
Wynberg Girls and Parel Vallei also didn’t have the best of starts to the season at the Spar Hockey Festival, but the weekend’s matches present both with a chance to right their wrongs.
When they played last weekend, they shared a goalless draw. They’ll meet again on Saturday.
The festival kicks off with a clash between Rustenburg Girls’ High School and Wynberg Girls’ High at 14:15, on Friday.
FIXTURES
Friday, 14 March
14:15 – Rustenburg Girls’ High School vs Wynberg Girl’; 14:50 – Paarl Girls High vs St Cyprian’s School; 15:25 – Paarl Gimnasium vs Parel Vallei; 16:00 – Springfield Convent School vs Wynberg Girls’ High; 16:35 – Rustenburg Girls’ High School vs Paarl Girls’ High; 17:10 – Parel Vallei vs St Cyprian’s School; 17:45 – Springfield Convent School vs Paarl Gimasium; 18:20 – Wynberg Girls’ High vs Paarl Girls’ High; 18:55 – Rustenburg Girls’ High School vs Parel Vallei; 19:30 – Paarl Gimnasium vs St Cyprian’s School; 20:05 – Springfield Convent School vs Paarl Girls’ High.
Saturday, 15 March
13:00 – Wynberg Girls’ High vs Parel Vallei; 13:35 – Rustenburg Girls’ High vs Paarl Gimnasium; 14:10 – Springfield Convent School vs St Cyprian’s School; 14:45 – Parel Vallei vs Paarl Girls’ High; 15:20 – Wynberg Girls’ High vs Paarl Gimnasium; 15:55 – Springfield Convent School vs Rustenburg Girls’ High; 16:30 – Paarl Gimnasium vs Paarl Girls’ High; 17:05 – Rustenburg Girls’ High vs St Cyprian’s School; 17:40 – Springfield Convent School vs Parel Vallei; 18:15 -Wynberg Girls’ High vs St Cyprian’s School.