Steinhoff Maties Hockey’s High Peformance Manager Paul Revington spoke to us about USSA.
Why is USSA an important tournament for Maties Hockey?
“Dealing with and negotiating through tournaments is always the ultimate test at International level in hockey. USSA offers the South African hockey calendar an opportunity for the students to really test themselves in such an environment. Any test of skill, character and mental toughness has always been welcomed at Maties Hockey and at USSA the players, coaches and support staff are tested on all these levels with five hard games in a row. To be USSA champions would suggest Maties Hockey is doing something right!”
What are the goals for this year’s tournament?
“I like to try to live in Utopia! Always aim to play the ‘perfect’ game in offense and defense. What does this look like? Both teams (Men and Women) will have a host of performance goals for the event, then broken down into specific performance goals for each game along the journey. Obviously Maties always want to win every USSA! It makes more sense to continually focus on these performance goals to get to the end goal. While we focus on these goals we will always strive to have a good degree of enjoyment and fun. That in the end is why we play this beautiful game!”
Some disappointments at last year’s tournament and the men at Varsity Hockey this year; how important is it to have a good tournament in the light of this?
“From the Women’s team perspective we overachieved in my opinion in 2015 at Varsity tournament and USSA. We lost a lot of players and really worked hard between February and July 2015 to make up the ground last year. We have lost another three influential players from USSA 2015 but got in several classy new recruitments. The likes of Quanita Bobbs, Heather McEwan, Tarryn Glasby and Nicole Le Fleur (to name a few) are leading this new group extremely well. I am excited for them because they are capable of playing well and consistently!
“From the Men’s team perspective we improved (3rd) in 2015 after the disappointment of 5th in 2014 so it was not all doom and gloom last year. We would like to produce five consistent performances that would make our Maties players proud in 2016. There is a lot of ability in the Men’s squad but nothing can be achieved without consistency of effort, hard work and internal self-belief. I am excited for this group too because they are also very close to putting all the ingredients together in a single event.”
