The South African men’s hockey team put in a big performance on Sunday night during their second game of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris at Stade Yves-du-Manoir.

South Africa played to a 2-2 draw against the ever-tough Great Britain to claim their first points of the games.

Matters levelled in the second half

Andrew Hobson opened the scoring for South Africa in the first quarter before Phil Roper levelled matters early in the second half.

Bradley Sherwood put South Africa back in the lead with a cracking goal seven minutes from full time but Rupert Shipperley scored an equaliser with less than 2 minutes to play.

Bradley Sherwood scored for South Africa. Picture: FIH.

Sherwood said the draw was a tough pill to swallow, but they will still take a lot out of the game against a much more superior opponent. “We always knew that it was going to be a competitive game and to take it that far and just miss out is a bit of a disappointing one.”

“We are happy to get some points moving forward in the tournament. I’m over the moon with my first Olympic goal. Obviously, the result is a bit of a dampener, but I couldn’t be happier!”

Matthew Guise-Brown. Picture: FIH

Hobson, in turn, said they put a lot of heart and effort into the result and for them, it’s important to move forward in their remaining matches. “They put us under a lot of pressure, but as the game went on we managed it a lot better.”

“Again, we live without regrets. There are some in terms of the results, but in terms of the heart and the effort we put in, there are no regrets. We’ve got two games done now, we’ve got three games left and we are going to keep moving forward.”

On Tuesday morning, at 10:30 South Africa will face Germany.

OFM Sport/Morgan Piek cg/mvh