Coaches Have Runs On Board For Cups
The Sunday Age
Sunday January 20, 2002
WE ARE entering a critical year for Australia's national hockey teams. The Kookaburras and the Hockeyroos are both coming off a developmental year in 2001, and will face their biggest tests since the Sydney Olympics when they compete in world cup tournaments this year.
The pressures of world cup competition, however, will not be new to the Australian coaching staff. Australia's two coaches, and their right-hand men, have all played in at least two world cups each. Three of the four coaches have gold medals from the 1986 world cup in London.
Barry Dancer (Kookaburras coach) and David Bell (Hockeyroos coach) played together in the 1975 and 1978 world cups, with Bell going on to captain the gold medal team of 1986. They also played together in the silver medal team at the 1972 Olympic Games.
The teams' assistant coaches, Colin Batch and Mark Hager (now aligned with the men's and women's teams respectively), also won gold medals at the 1986 world cup and were members of the 1988 Olympic team in Seoul. Both were outstanding players, Batch a clever and creative inside forward and Hager an exceptional goal-scoring centre forward.
Batch and Bell are triple Olympians and Hager would have been but for his late withdrawal from the 1992 Barcelona team due to injury.
Between them, the four present coaches played 639 international games (an average of 160 apiece). The average number of caps in the present men's team is 71.
Hager believes his playing experience adds a dimension to his coaching: ``The experience of playing top-level hockey is invaluable at a world cup. It may be something as simple as learning to control your nerves in the lead-up to big games," he said. ``I hope to be able to pass on some of the things I've learnt in my time as a player to the less-experienced members of our group, and I expect the other coaches in both programs will do the same."
The formula of having former elite players coaching the national team has been successful for Australia. The previous Hockeyroo coach, Ric Charlesworth, played 227 matches for Australia, while his Kookaburra counterpart Terry Walsh racked up 165 caps in his playing career.
They had well-credentialled assistants: Bob Haigh (Hockeyroos' assistant) was a brilliant half-back who captained Australia at the Montreal Olympics, while Victorian Jim Irvine (Kookaburras) also did well for Australia.
Between the four present coaches, and their four predecessors, that's a total of 1298 caps over a 30-year period.
The present crop of coaches has the task of getting the players in peak form for world cup campaigns that fall either side of the Commonwealth Games in July.
The Hockeyroos will try to win world cup gold for the third consecutive time when they host the women's world cup in Perth starting in November.
In contrast, the Australian men's team is completing its preparation for the World Cup in Kuala Lumpur next month by participating in the six-nations invitational at the World Cup venue this week.
On Friday they defeated New Zealand 4-2 in the opening match, with Dancer concerned that ``we were too loose at the back in the second half", although he praised the players for regrouping late in the match.
The team for this tournament is close to full strength with the return of veteran half-back Daniel Sproule following his withdrawal from the Champions Trophy team last year because of work and family commitments.
Jeremy Hiskins and veteran goalkeeper Lachlan Dreher are the Victorian representatives in this team.
Claire Mitchell-Taverner is a former Hockeyroo who has won Olympic gold.
© 2002 The Sunday Age