Ghana’s National Women’s Hockey Team head coach, Osei Boakye-Yiadom, has tagged the team’s game against Nigeria in the final of the 13th African Games as the toughest his side faced in the competition.
He said this in an exclusive interview with Citi Sports in the wake of the team’s successful run in the African Games that had Ghana’s Women’s Hockey Team win gold thanks to a penalty shoot out win over arch rival Nigeria.
Reflecting on the run, coach Boakye-Yiadom said that despite the team’s fine preparations in the lead up to the competition, delays in laying a new pitch was a challenge to some aspects of the team’s training sessions.
“We set for ourselves a target and we got there. It was a planned thing to play in the final and through our efforts we were able to get to the final and it was a very difficult match because we had beaten Nigeria earlier in the group stage.”
“The only setback was that when we got back to Accra (from Kumasi), there was no pitch to train on so about six days, we were not doing any stick and ball work, we had to work on our physicals so that has been the journey.”
Ghana missed out on a gold medal win in the men’s division; the 13th African Games host nation won silver with Egypt claiming gold.
