THE Hockey Association of Zimbabwe have sent a select senior men and women’s team at the ongoing South Africa Inter-Provincial tournament in an effort to create competition for local teams.

The tournament in Randburg will run until Saturday.

In matches played on Monday the men’s team beat KZN 10-0 while the women’s side lost 2-4 to Western Province.

HAZ president, Humphrey Chigwedere, said there is need for more competition to expose local players to international standards.

“It’s a South African tournament and we were invited as guests. We just asked if we could play for exposure. It’s a mixture of juniors and seniors, those guys that were available. Some of the seniors had work commitments and some of the juniors are outside the country.

“This is the first one (competition for the seniors) and the second one is the one where we are planning to have a tri-nation, which will feature Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa in August.

“We realised that when we send our teams for top qualifiers such as the world cup we lack international exposure. So this is to give our players exposure,” said Chigwedere.

Chigwedere said they have also begun preparations for the Under-21 girls’ team that will be taking part at the Junior World Cup between November and December in Chile.

The team qualified for the global showcase when they came second behind South Africa at the Junior Africa Cup last month in Namibia.

“We have started preparations in terms of administration and in terms of getting the players ready they are working on individual fitness. They had a training fitness programme given out two weeks ago.

“The team’s management is also preparing the squad training practices but as of now they are doing individual fitness,” said Chigwedere.

Zimbabwe last took part in the Junior World Cup in 2005 where they finished on position 13 out of the 16 countries that participated in that competition.

And Chigwedere said they hope to improve from the team’s last performance going into this year’s event.

“We are looking at $120 000 for preparations and the trip. We have not raised anything but we are talking to several people.

“I think in the next two months we will have something because we have two people who have promised us. Once we start we will put in place a fund-raising committee,” said Chigwedere.

The HAZ president said they are maintaining the same technical team that worked with the Under-21s during the qualifiers led by Trish Davies.