Wits strike hockey gold as men’s side find winning formula
- Tshepiso Mametela
Very few teams have found the recipe to winning consistently like the Wits Hockey men. Over the last two-years, the 1st team coached by Ricky West, have romped to two Premier League title victories. Adding to this, the outfit defied tremendous odds to win gold and ascend the 2019 USSA Hockey Tournament winners podium in Stellenbosch.
With such attained success under his belt and more expected to come, West attributed the bulk of the success enjoyed on the Astro Turf to the powers that be at Wits Sport. “When we started this programme four-years ago, Wits Sport wanted to know what our needs were. Since then, they have been very much able to provide everything that we have needed; from bursary funding to additional staff,” West noted.
It is more than just this support, however, that has enabled Wits to go from a relatively unknown player on the University stage, to one of the behemoths of the sport, in such a short period of time. West maintained that belief was at the forefront of what propels his players’ exploits at each turn. He said this character trait accompanies each of the eleven, each time they stride out across the turf.
“We’ve instilled within our group the ethos that if we believe it, we can achieve it,” said West. “Added to this, is hard work — and with world-class facilities available to us, and that belief, the only thing we’ve had as a controllable was how hard we work to attain all of what we have managed.”
He continued: “We’ve set ourselves the goals of winning the USSA championship and to defend our title in the league, both of which have now been achieved. Looking forward to 2020, I think we kind of have targets on our back, which makes our job even harder, just to make sure that we keep performing at the level that we are.
“We already know that we’re performing at a high level, the question now becomes, how do we get to the next little level?” said the coach, as he hopes to improve on the heights that the institution has managed to achieve, so far.
It thus goes without saying, that West foresees a successful season going into next year. He hopes to continue inspiring his troops towards greater pursuits, and to ensure that the notion of hoisting the next trophy, is possible long before the next big tournament is played. “2020 sees the men compete in the Varsity Hockey competition, which is something which we obviously haven’t won before, all be it that we placed third and fourth in the last two editions.
“This is one tournament that we would really like to go out and try and win and sort of complete a treble (Premier League, USSA and Varsity Hockey).” West added, “We need to try and compete consistently, so we can defend our Southern Gauteng hockey title. The USSA tournament is always a good and difficult one to win, as anyone of eight Universities can win at any given time.”
And with such, “big, scary and audacious goals”, in sight, West has every reason to believe that 2020 will prove to be the most successful year on record, for a hyped, motivated and inspired Wits 1st team men hockey outfit.
2019 Southern Gauteng Hockey League Champions