African Hockey Limps Qualifiers

Results

South Africa 11 Uganda 0

Nigeria 4 Zimbabwe 3

Egypt 4 Zambia 1

Kenya 1 Ghana 3

Friday

Semi finals

Uganda v Egypt 3:45pm

South Africa v Ghana 8:15pm

Uganda hockey national men’s team silenced their critics by making it to the semifinals of the African Hockey Limps qualifiers in Pretoria, South Africa despite losing to hosts in the last group game.

Hockey Cranes star Timothy Ntumba in action

The game played at the University of Pretoria High-Performance Centre on Wednesday saw the Hockey Cranes make history by making it to the semi-finals despite having the slimmest chances after losing to Zimbabwe on Monday.

“We came into the game with a plan of not conceding more than 14 goals, however good South Africa was, we tried our best to deter them from scoring many goals that would eliminate us from the main tournament,” Hockey Cranes defender Brian Okodi.

He made this during the post-match press conference after the game against South Africa at the University of Pretoria.

Uganda came into the game second on the table on three points with Nigeria and Zimbabwe although with a better goal difference, while Zimbabwe and Nigeria both had negative 10 each.

The Hockey Cranes came into the game with only one mission of not conceding more than 14 goals to have their dream of playing in the semifinals come to reality.

Hockey Cranes employed a defensive approach that deterred attack-minded South Africa from scoring in the first 10 minutes of the game but they were able to break the deadlock in the 11th minute and 13th minute ending the first  2-0.

South Africa came back into the last three quarters stronger and determined to score more goals but Uganda had its calculator in mind not to concede more than 14 goals to keep the semifinal hopes alive.

South Africa scored for fun but Uganda made it clear that they were not going to concede for fun.

Despite the loss, Uganda managed to finish second in the group with only three points and negative three goals. 

Uganda will on Friday face Egypt on Friday evening with the hope of making it to the finals.