South Africa and Egypt secured their places in Saturday’s Men’s Finals of the Africa Cup for Nations tournament. South Africa defeated Nigeria by 8-0 while Egypt tied Ghana 1-1. Nigeria and Ghana will play for the third place in Friday’s consolation game.

South Africa showed their intentions of carrying the day very early in the half when they completely dominated play with their adroit passing, hard runs and incisive cuts at goal which seemed to confuse the Nigerians. South Africa opened the scoring through a superbly taken penalty corner in the 6th minute by Gareth Carr. They followed up with two more goals in the 29th and 31st minutes through Marvin Harper (FG) and Justin Reid-Ross (PC) to take a 3-0 lead going into the half.

In the second half, South Africa scored five more goals through Gareth Carr (PC 41st and 45th minutes), Thornton McDade (49th minute FG, 52nd and 69th minutes PC) to cap an evening of entertaining hockey.

In the other match of the day Ghana tried to retain a modicum of respect by earning a tie against Egypt.  Daniel Lamptey scored for Ghana in the 34th minute and Samir Mohamed equalized with a penalty corner goal in the 49th minute.

Much had been expected of the Ghanaian team with their recent three week training tour of Holland, backed by their vociferous supporters. They will need to beat Nigeria in the bronze medal game to satisfy their fans.

The competition continues on Wednesday with South Africa playing Egypt at 1700 hours and Ghana playing Nigeria at 1900 hours in the women’s competition. Ghana will have to beat Nigeria to play South Africa in the finals.

Source: AfHF