The South African men and women’s hockey teams both booked their spots at the Paris Olympics next year, winning their continental qualifying tournament deciders in Pretoria on Sunday.

But they did it so differently.

The women were dominant as they trounced Nigeria 9-0, while the men edged Egypt 2-1 in a nail-biter that was settled only in the final quarter after Ryan Julius scored after a great through-pass by Mustapha Cassiem with nine minutes remaining.

Even then South African fans had to survive anxious late moments in the final minute when Egypt had a goal disallowed on video referral.

Matthew Guise-Brown put the hosts up 1-0 in the first minute, but the Egyptians hit back through a field goal by Hossam Ghobran.

And after that the match went into the trenches.

Egypt enjoyed periods of domination in the middle of the match and South Africa survived only because of some superb work by goalkeeper James Gowan.

In the second half it seemed as if Egypt had taken the lead, only to have their goal disallowed for a foot infringement on video referral.

But the SA men found their rhythm in the last quarter to sneak through. 

For the SA women, Tarryn Lombard scored a hat-trick, including the first goal in the first minute of the match, to finish as the top scorer of the tournament with seven.

SA were relentless as they attacked in waves, overwhelming the same team they had beaten only 4-0 in the group stages.

Lombard scored the second goal in the 14th minute and soon afterwards Jean-Leigh du Toit made it 3-0 and on the 20-minute mark Quanita Bobbs scored with a brilliant reverse strike from the edge on the circle.

The West Africans were done after that and were unable to plug the holes the South African attack bored through the field.

“It means everything to have the ticket to Paris, this is what the girls set out to do and we got the job done today,” said Bobbs, who ended as tied second behind Lombard with six goals. 

“Hopefully we can get a good programme together in the lead-up to Paris. We have an ambitious group, we have a young, talented group and we need as much time together to compete at the Olympics.

“There’s exciting young players in our team, talented individuals. Every game they bring their strengths and that’s what we want them to do. It’s cool to see that some of them scored today,” she added .

Both Taheera Augousti and Paris-Gail Isaacs scored in the second half.

“We just encourage them to bring their bravery within our systems,” said Bobbs. “It’s just great to play with them, they keep us on our toes, off and on the field.”