Robin’s great track record

Ken Borland

Sports scientist Robin van Ginkel (above) was yesterday named as the new head coach of the South African women’s hockey team and there is little doubt the 36-yearold was the obvious choice based on his ascension through the pipeline.

Van Ginkel was the assistant coach for both the men’s and women’s teams when they claimed the African Cup of Nations titles last year, as well as coaching the SA U18s and SA U21s. Most recently he has been the assistant coach of the Austrian men’s team, who have enjoyed arguably their best year ever, and has also been involved with the champion Delhi Waveriders team in the Hockey India League. The director of hockey at St Stithians also claimed three IPT titles with Southern Gauteng.

“Robin has a fantastic track record of success in the South African competitions pipeline and this is strengthened by his international experience and sports science background. There were some fantastic candidates but Robin really stood out and we look forward to having him join or staff and improving our programmes across the board.

“We embarked on a robust and thorough process evaluating our candidates against the requirements of the role and through a deep interview process. He has a superb hockey resumé, which has also featured a significant amount of time within the South African hockey structures,” Dave Viney, the head of high performance, said yesterday.