On the eve of South Africa’s match against India, goalkeeper Mbande Phumelela reflected on an indifferent performance so far by her team in the Olympic hockey competition in Tokyo.

Mbande spoke to stick2hockey.com after a 1-4 defeat to Germany in South Africa’s penultimate match in Pool ‘A’, saying: “We knew it was going to be tough. We haven’t paid international hockey since March 2020 and we decided to play hard when we got here.

“Overall it’s been quite disappointing but we’ve got one match remaining (against India) on Saturday and we hope we make the quarterfinals by winning it,” the 28-year-old said.

“If you defend for such long periods of time, you must secure the attacking moments. But that has been a bit disappointing, a big letdown.”

“We are happy to have scored a field goal today but we could have got a couple more penalty corners. We picked up in the second half but yes, overall it’s been disappointing in this area and we look to fix it for tomorrow’s game,” Mbande added.

Mbande, however, was pleased with South Africa’s penalty corner defence. “We’ve done well as a unit, having faced five penalty corners on the average per game and we’ve used our running options and defended well. If anything, it’s one of our strengths,” Mbande revealed.

Both South Africa’s teams – men and women – needed crowd funding to participate in the Olympics in the wake of its national sports body’s stringent measures.

South African goalie Mbande Phumelela

Mbande threw some light on the team’s expectations in Tokyo.

“Like I said we always knew it would be a difficult tournament. We expected to secure some games but that hasn’t happened. We are still winless going into the last match but we hope to have a better finish.

She flashed back to the last time she and her team played India, at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. “If I remember right, we lost 0-1 but that doesn’t indicate anything about tomorrow’s match as the teams are quite different,” Mbande said.

“India has a lot more international experience but anything can happen and we really hope to play our style of hockey and secure our game

Does she know any of the Indian players, her answer was predicable: “Rani (Rampal). Is there anyone who doesn’t know Rani?,” she said with a chuckle.

“She also recalled another player Lily Chanu and the goalkeeper (Savita Punia),” she added, signing off before rejoining her teammates.