Photo caption: (front) Bili Ntuli, Garth Turner, Alex Stewart and Jonathan Cloete; (back) Ross Talmage, Jacques Bleeker, Gareth Simmonds, Chris Hawkridge and Rob McKinley
Both Bili Ntuli and Jacques Bleeker that captain the South African u18 boys’ hockey team at the Youth Olympics and Australian series respectively joined the Steinhoff Maties Men this year.
Bleeker, Ntuli, Rob McKinley, Alex Stewart, Garth Turner, Jonathan Cloete, Chris Hawkridge, Ross Talmage, Gareth Simmonds en Reece Arendse all have registered as first years at the Stellenbosch University this year. With these ten players it is the biggest intake of national u18/19 players at Maties since 2005. They will give a big boost to the depth of Maties Men’s hockey.
According to Maties Men’s coach, Neville Rothman, the first team will only loose the services of Marc Fourie. “That is great for the team’s continuity. But we have lost some Vics players. Vics are the feeder team for Maties, so to get such a nice intake of youngsters is really good news for the club,” said Rothman.
Rothman, also the coach of the Paul Roos first team, took most of these youngsters to the Youth Olympics where South African just missed out on a medal by finishing fourth. The team did cause a great upset though when they beat Australia in the group games.