Fired-up Kookaburras Ready To Believe

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday August 14, 2004

Richard Hinds

It is tempting fate to say it and, given the team's well-chronicled history, perhaps defies logic, too. But there was something irresistible about the Australian men's hockey team as it finished its preparations for the Olympics.

Few of the names of the team's new stars, such as striker Jamie Dwyer, are instantly recognisable and there are only four survivors from the team that won bronze in Sydney. However there was a size, strength and youthful vitality about the current squad that was so readily apparent as the players flexed their muscles in the lead-up games. Even the Kookaburras's usually conservative coach Barry Dancer could not conceal his optimism.

"I just think there is an excitement about them and the best of this group is yet to come," he said. "I'm confident about this group and excited about this group in the next two weeks of competition. I think that confidence and self belief has grown with the group and it's based on real belief."

For those with a sense of Australian Olympic history, words like those will seem like a trap. Everybody knows that the Kookaburras come to each Olympics confident that, this time, the gold medal hoodoo can be lifted. And every time they leave with their hearts broken. Dancer, a member of the brilliant 1976 team upset 1-0 by New Zealand in the final, knows that better than most.

With each successive disappointment - last time the Kookaburras lost a penalty shoot-out to the Dutch in the semi-finals - the issue of whether to stare down the challenge or ignore their dark history becomes more pressing and, perhaps, more mentally debilitating.

"We've wanted to put it on the table right from the beginning," Dancer said. "Certainly we knew it would be an issue, particularly with you guys [the media] and others, so for us it was something we had to address."

Yet forward Michael Brennan, one of the survivors of Sydney, offers a different perspective. "We pay absolutely no homage to that at all," he says of the team's reputation for falling at the final hurdle.

That Brennan's words are at odds with those of his coach may be because he only returned to the squad nine months ago. Having retired after Sydney, he drove harness racing horses in Melbourne, chalking up 10 second places in 40 starts - a record that might be compared with that of the Kookaburras.

Not that anyone made them to Brennan. "Not when I had a driver's whip in my hand, anyway," he said.

Brennan has come out of retirement just in time to add his uncanny attacking instincts to a team he believes can win a gold medal, because it is physically stronger than its predecessors. "The whole athlete base has changed and improved as far as athletic ability goes," he said.

Dancer acknowledged that he looked for strong bodies as well as skilful stick-work when he put his squad together and has put an even greater emphasis on fitness. "One of the strengths of this team is they are as fit as any hockey team has been from Australia," he said.

The squad has also spent time acclimatising to the hot conditions in heat chambers at the WA Institute of Sport, playing tournaments in Darwin and Cairns, and arrived here four days ahead of the next team to check into the village. "We are handling the conditions better than everyone we've played so far so all the preparation we've done is starting to pay off," said Brennan after scoring the lone goal in a 1-0 practice match win over Korea.

On the surface, the result of Thursday's final warm-up - a 3-1 victory over Egypt - might not seem that impressive. But the squad had trained in searing heat just two hours before that match.

Now for the real thing. Germany are the world champions, but there is a feeling that the back-to-back gold medallists, the Netherlands, will be hard to beat.

Anything less than a semi-final place would be a disappointment for the Kookaburras. A place in the final would again push the door ajar. And then?

"This team has the same challenge all the other Australian teams have had," Dancer said. "I think they are ready to take it on."

© 2004 Sydney Morning Herald

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