{"id":29371,"date":"2023-06-15T08:12:42","date_gmt":"2023-06-15T06:12:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hockey.supersportschools.com\/?p=1526"},"modified":"2023-06-15T08:12:42","modified_gmt":"2023-06-15T06:12:42","slug":"michaelhouse-intends-to-turn-around-a-tough-season-against-hilton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=29371","title":{"rendered":"Michaelhouse intends to turn around a tough season against Hilton"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1540\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1540\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1540\" src=\"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Michaelhouse-Schools-Hockey-300x200.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1540\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">PHOTO: Martin Ashworth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Michaelhouse will be aiming to turn around a tough season when they travel to Hilton College in one of KZN&#8217;s heated matchups this coming weekend.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The side which hails from the Midlands area of KwaZulu-Natal, has had a pretty challenging season, faced with adversity but in the midst of it all managed to produce five provincial players this year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">This coming weekend, they take on arguably one of the most dangerous teams in Durban, Hilton College who have moved to fifth spot in the U18 boys rankings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Ahead of the match,\u00a0<\/span><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">SuperSport Schools<\/span><\/strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0had an exclusive interview with the coach, <strong>Grant Von Mayer<\/strong> to preview the match, and get more detail about his team.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8220;The season has been a tough one,&#8221; opened Von Mayer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8220;It started with promise as we had a fit healthy and talented squad. Unfortunately, we suffered from many disruptions over the season and have seldom been able to fix the side we planned.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8220;So in terms of results, we are disappointed and we feel that we have not been able to capitalize on early success against the likes of College,&#8221; he added.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">In many cases, the performance of certain teams depreciates when they lose regular first-team players and more experienced players. This is also the case at the KZN school, however, Von Mayer believes the squad they have now will drive the hockey program into 2024.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8220;The squad is bolstered by a strong Grade 11 group.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8220;These boys will have the responsibility of driving the squad into 2024.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">There might be some disappointing results recorded by Von Mayer&#8217;s side but he believes positive performances against Durban rivals will go a long way for the confidence of his side. He picked the best games he&#8217;s seen his side in action in:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8220;The Maritzburg College game was a fantastic fixture. We managed to win it (3-2), however, both sides produced some good constructive hockey and it was a good advert for the schools.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8220;Our first-half defensive effort against Hilton was extraordinary and despite the score line, our game against the dangerous DHS team was a highlight for me.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8220;The team (against DHS) had to adapt to a nuanced structure and they managed this exceptionally well for much of the game.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The season might&#8217;ve not lived up to expectations for the coach, however, the fact that the side managed to produce five Inland U18 B players cannot be overlooked.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The likes of John Yeadon, West Mitchell-Innes, Patrick Lambert, Piko Nkompela, and Mokilibi Makara will represent the school at the IPT tournament starting next week in Bloemfontein.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">But first, they need to go through a Hilton side, who come off a (1-0) loss against Kearsney College while they went down (3-0) against Westville Boys. The last time the sides met was earlier on in the season and Hilton won (4-2).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Kick-off between the two sides is at\u00a0<\/span><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">11:30<\/span><\/strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0on Saturday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The teams:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Hilton College<\/span><\/strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">: Nkosi Shozi, Michael Sara, Grant Bridgeford, Dale Herbert, Nicholas Chantler, Akha Mda, Wian Liebenberg, Joel Kitshoff, Kearabetswe Khoele, Jarred Kitto, Masud Dakile, Jarred Matlby, Tino Hove, Murray Loughor-Clarke, Benjamin Mcguigan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Michaelhouse<\/span><\/strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">: Pikolomzi Nkompela, Jordan Baxter, Jason Lawrence, Nicholas Pitt, Christopher Angel, Keaton Porrill, West Mitchell-Innes, Sebastian Hofmeyr, John Yeadon, Murray Hall-Jones, Thomas Griffin, Dominic Furby, Patrick Lambert, Erich van Zyl, Oliver Brown.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michaelhouse will be aiming to turn around a tough season when they travel to Hilton College in one of KZN&#8217;s heated matchups this coming weekend.\u00a0 The side which hails from the Midlands area of KwaZulu-Natal, has had a pretty challenging season, faced with adversity but in the midst of it all managed to produce five [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":29062,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}