If you’re not one of the Big Three sports in South Africa, forget about it and get to the back of the queue. Sponsors are just not going to line up to back you, unless you represent the interests of soccer, rugby or cricket, and even those big-hitters are finding the going a little tougher in these post-recession times.
Those are the cold, hard facts, as every South African sports administrator — raging against the machine and shedding blood, sweat and tears to get their marginalised sport noticed and the backing to take their performances to the next level — will testify. It’s hard to attract sponsorship if you’re peddling one of South Africa’s “lesser-known” sports.
Yet some have continued to bang away, refusing to give up on their dream and accept that a big-name corporate just can’t get sufficient return on investment to sponsor the sport they love.
Enter South African women’s hockey, where the administrators have shown that, with the right backing and effective use of that financial muscle to make the right appointments in key positions, success cannot continue to elude you.
The process started with the appointment of former national men’s team coach, Giles Bonnet, as the person to take the women’s team forward from May of last year. Bonnet, a highly rated international coach with experience in the Netherlands, Belgium and China, had a vision for the team and the South African Hockey Association bought into it.
Partnerships
The two parties agreed on a long-term strategy for both the senior women’s team and the under-21 2013 group. What that entailed at the time was a 26-month preparation leading up to next year’s London Olympics and a three-year preparation plan for the under-21 squad, taking them up to the Junior World Cup in 2013.
The next step in the right direction took place in August, with the announcement of Investec as the national women’s team’s shirt sponsor for the World Cup in Argentina. The bank then extended that agreement to the recent series involving China, Azerbaijan and Belgium.
A lot of this, if not all, would not have been possible but for the financial resources to host these international teams and allow the national squad to camp and prepare, spending valuable time together, as part of Bonnet’s vision. “The Investec partnership,” said Bonnet, “allowed us to play 56 matches in seven months and remain on line to meet our objectives in London in 2012.”
Now, the more cynical among you will argue that the mere appearance of the bank’s name in this piece takes the form of an obvious punt and justifies its investment in the sport, but
the fact remains that without the financial clout, the national women’s team would have remained relatively inactive.
In fact, Bonnet said that when he took over they had been without a programme for six months.
Those Doubting Thomases among you may be grumbling about the impact that money has on previously untouched semi-amateur sports such as field hockey but the numbers don’t lie. Ranked 12th in the world, the South African women’s team have won 19 of their past 21 Test matches, including nine over the world’s fourth-ranked team, China. Throw in a solitary win over World Cup winners Argentina here in South Africa in December and already the signs of progress are evident.
‘Money allowed us to bring experts’
Further strengthening that case is the fact that the South Africans lost 11 times to the Chinese just seven months ago, shipping 65 goals in the process.
When Bonnet took over he identified six key areas that would represent the team’s focus going forward: technical skills, physical conditioning, decision-making and on-field responsibility, specialist skills, set-pieces and structures. With the financial resources at his disposal, Bonnet was able to bring in the experts to tick those boxes. They included sports scientist Rob van Ginkel, physical trainer Derek Coetzee and a host of international experts, who covered the areas of video analysis, peak performance, patterns and systems. There was also specialised striker, goalkeeper and drag-flick training from respected practitioners such as Andrew Meredith and Martijn Driver.
“The money allowed us to bring in experts and to create a world-class environment for the players,” said Bonnet.
As a result, the future is bright as South African women’s hockey looks to the next generation of stars to assume the mantle held by current world-class performers, such as Captain Marsha Marescia and star striker Pietie Coetzee.
Former national men’s team captain Craig Jackson believes that the difference in the past year has been Bonnet. “Giles has brought a whole new level of professionalism and focus,” he said. “There’s a strategy in place and an end goal, and to get the women from 12th in the world to fifth or sixth is an achievable task.”
Well, that’s a good thing because that’s Bonnet’s goal, with his succession plan for the under-21 team. So if you’re looking to put a few bob down on a hockey team in London next year, you could do worse than backing Bonnet’s charges.