x2

Field Hockey Canada logo

The Australian Women?s Hockey Team arrived in Vancouver yesterday for a 4 game series against Canada . Currently ranked third in the world the Australians are on a North American tour having played 4 games against the USA last week in Virginia Beach. This is the first tour for the Australians under new head coach Frank Murray and includes some uncapped players as well as several experienced Olympians.

For the Canadian Team this will be their first encounter against Australia since playing a friendly as part of Australia?s preparations for the World Cup in Perth in November 2002. On that day the Canadians were soundly beaten but new Canadian Coach Sally Bell hopes this weeks results will be more competitive.

? These games are the part of our Commonwealth Games preparations and will give us an opportunity to measure the progress we have made since centralization began and to take a look at one of our Commonwealth Games opponents. It?s great for the hockey community here in British Columbia to see a top field hockey nation like Australia in action.?

Sarah Forbes, long time Canadian team member comments, ?The Canadian women's team is very eager to play Australia in the upcoming 4 game series. We have a good mix of experienced players and youth. The team has been training hard over the past 6 weeks under new coach Sally Bell and are looking forward to matching up against the Aussies. We have few opportunities to play such a highly skilled team and this will be a great learning experience that we will be able to use as we focus on our first major international event, the Commonwealth Games in 2006.?

The Canadian Team is currently ranked 20th in the world but coach Bell believes that these games will give the team the opportunity to play against quality opposition and gain valuable experience. ? We have 6 uncapped players who have been selected in the squad to play Australia, 4 of them U21 who are currently preparing for the Junior World Cup in Chile in September.Our squad is relatively inexperienced so the learning curve will be steep but well worthwhile if we are to be competitive at the Commonwealth Games in March 2006.?

The first match in the series is Wednesday, 15 June at 1800 hours at Wright Field UBC Campus.

For more information, full schedule and results, Canadian team list, etc., please click on Australia Series button on FHC's homepage. fieldhockey.ca

Rate This Article

Select Here  5 Stars  (Best Rating)   4 Stars   3 Stars   2 Stars   1 Star  (Worst Rating)

Your opinion counts.
Rate this article or enter your comments below.