Varsity Hockey player of the series Dylan Swanepoel says that the tournament was great preparation for his upcoming World Cup campaign with the South African team.
The Maties ace flies out to The Hague in the Netherlands with the national side on Tuesday night, less than 24 hours after losing out to UJ in a shootout in the Varsity Hockey Final.
Maties went 2-0 up in the final thanks to an amazing goal from Swanepoel, but the home side came roaring back to clinch the title in dramatic style which left the Stellenbosch side deflated.
“We did not want to fall into a 2-0 trap and we were looking for a third goal but it didn’t work out. It is not a nice way for a game to be decided, the teams were pretty evenly matched,” said Swanepoel.
The Maties star said that he had relied on ‘instinct’ to finish his goal.
“I knew I had some defenders behind me and once I was on the baseline I tried to get it into the air because I know how hard that is to defend. At the last minute I looked up and it was just instinct to put it in,” he explained.
Swanepoel said that it was a great honour to be named as the player of the series.
“It was amazing to be nominated, the voting took care of itself and it was nice to win but being nominated was the big honour,” he said.
He said that although Maties did not win the tournament had been a ‘good experience’ which provided valuable game-time ahead of the World Cup.
“Our first objective was to reach the semifinals and winning the tournament would have been the cherry on top but we definitely deserved to be in the final,” he said.
Swanepoel and the rst of the national side will spend 10 days in the Netherlands preparing for their first match of the World Cup against Germany on June 1.
“It is very exciting to be going to the country where hockey is probably biggest to play against the best in the world,” he said.
