Whilst NWU-Pukke may have gone unbeaten at home, goal-machine Celia Evans is well-aware that they will have their work cut out for them in Bloemfontein this weekend.
The Potchefstroom side dominated the first leg of Varsity Hockey in front of their home crowd, with national attacking midfielder Evans notching four goals, but she expects a tough examination when they get down to the Free State.
She told varsitysportsssa: “It is definitely easier playing at home as you know the environment and you are comfortable because all your friends are there so that made things easier in the first leg.”
Much of the focus this week has been on the impact of last week’s Under-21 inter-provincial tournament and Evans is hoping that North West’s encouraging performance will give the Pukke side a confidence boost ahead of the Bloemfontein leg.
“The majority of our team are in that North West side and they came second so that should give us a bit of confidence and hopefully they would all have recovered in time,” she said.
With the national training camp in China having been moved back to next week and the selection for the national U21 squad to go to the World Cup coming up Evans is expecting a very high standard when action gets underway this weekend.
“All the national players will be there with the training camp pushed back a week and with the U21 World Cup coming up all the younger girls will be pushing hard,” she explained.
Although competition will be fierce Evans is confident that the NWU-Pukke team’s fluid style will give them a good chance of maintaining their spot at the top of Varsity Hockey.
“We play a very fast-paced type of game where we move the ball quickly and pass into space, so that creates scoring opportunities. We have been training hard as a team so hopefully that pays off,” she said.
Evans said that the Varsity Hockey games are ideal preparation for the national squad members who are building towards Round Three of the World Challenge in London, and added that it would also be nice to keep her goal-scoring form going.
“It helps our match fitness to have a lot of quality games liek this. I never get to score goals so it was nice to get a few in Potchefstroom,” she said.
