July 2009

The Hockeyroos Bounce Back

They’re the golden girls of Australian sport who came down to earth with a bump in Beijing

The Hockeyroos Bounce Back

WORDS IAN JARRETT

The Hockeyroos, the national women’s hockey team, have collected a swag of honours, including three Olympic titles, two World Cup gold medals, two Commonwealth Games titles and on nine occasions they’ve carried off the Champions Trophy, the International Hockey Federation’s most prestigious annual event.

They’ve been named Australia’s Team of the Year five times.

Then, at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Hockeyroos finished in an unheard of fifth place, losing just one pool game yet missing out on a semi-final berth.

Now, after key retirements, a new-look Hockeyroos squad is back into full training with their focus on the six-nation women’s Hockey Champions Trophy 2009 event to be played at Sydney Olympic Park from 11 to 19 July.

Gone are many of the stars that have driven the Hockeyroos to such lofty heights, and in their place are nine new players, six of whom are still eligible to play in the Junior World Cup in the US in August.

In preparation, the girls have been training four times a week, from 5.30am until 8.15am, and then returning for more coaching and practice three evenings a week. Given they earn just AU$250 per week from the Australian Institute of Sport while they train at their base in Perth, most of the team are also either studying or working full-time to supplement their income.

Coach Frank Murray has put the disappointment of Beijing behind him but just to remind himself he takes a pen and writes the Beijing hockey pool scores on a sheet of paper. The crucial result was a 2-2 draw with China, following China’s 6-1 demolition of South Korea, a result that raised more than a few eyebrows.

“We had 10 points from our pool games and that’s the first time 10 points has never been enough to reach the Olympic women’s hockey finals,” he says.

It’s little consolation that in the four most recent international tournaments contested by hockey’s elite, including the Beijing Olympics, the Hockeyroos played 25 games and lost only twice, including a defeat by the Netherlands, the Beijing champions.

Murray says the team learned some valuable lessons about themselves and their opponents in Beijing. “You learn just how tough the game is. One error, one missed shot can cost you an Olympic medal. You have to live with that and learn from it.”

Murray expects the Olympic champions, the Netherlands, to be the team to beat in Sydney. “We think we can beat them, if we can get to them,” he says. In the way are China, Argentina, England and Germany.

Murray says Australia will be fielding its best side in Sydney but will keep a few tricks up its sleeve. “Everything we do is building towards the next Olympics so we don’t want to show our opponents too much, too soon. We need to hold something back.”

As 22-year-old Hockeyroos defender Kobie McGurk explains: “The biggest change has been with skill development. A lot of time is now invested in learning and improving specific skills and techniques — it’s about attending to the detail and executing the skill every time. There’s less emphasis on getting a fitness effect out of training, and more on developing skills.”

Mother of two and midfielder/ striker, Hope Munro, 28, made her debut for the Hockeyroos in 2004 before taking time off for her family. She now has two daughters, Ella (6) and Olivia (3), and has to juggle family life with that of an international sportswoman.

“I owe a lot to my husband,” she explains. “He’s always there when things go pear-shaped.”

Munro says that she had promised her children the family would go camping if she didn’t make the Beijing Olympic squad. When she was chosen, the family went to Beijing, including her daughters. Their response was: “Mummy, I don’t want to go to China. I want to go camping.”

Munro, who is taking part in her third Olympics program with the Hockeyroos, says that the disappointment of failing to reach the semi-finals in Beijing was hard to take. “It was devastating, I never want to go through that experience again.”

The Beijing experience is a big incentive to perform well in the upcoming Champions Trophy, when the Australian squad will include 17-year-old Melbourne schoolgirl Georgia Nanscawen.

“You see the Hockeyroos play on TV so to actually be a part of it will be very exciting,” says Nanscawen.

Midfielder Kate Hollywood, 23, who has enjoyed considerable success with the Hockeyroos, says it’s essential that players learn to deal with failure as well as success.

“When you put yourself out there, you have to be prepared to fail and to deal with the emotion of failure. But the good thing about being in a closely-knit team is that you’re all in it together and you can share the pain as well as the pleasure.”  






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