Australia breeze through World Cup qualification
Roar Rookie By JiMMM, 3 Sep 2009 JiMMM is a Roar Rookie
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- Football World Cup, hockey, hockey world cup, hockeyroos, Socceroos
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Australia has recently qualified for a World Cup in a walk rather than a run, not losing a game and only conceding one goal. No, I’m not talking about the Socceroos, but the Kookaburras and the Hockey World Cup to be held early in 2010.
Having finished in the top three in seven of the last eight World Cups, the last five Games, and 25 of the 30 Champions Trophy events, the Kookaburras have also won Gold in the last three Commonwealth Games.
The achievements by this team are unmatched by any other male Australian team.
Given the level of achievement of this team over the last 20 years or so, and how much Australians like a winner, it is surprising how little recognition this team achieves.
Maybe it is the amateur status of hockey in Australia that fails to hold our attention, or maybe it is that hockey just does not talk itself up as any other sport would do if it had a team as well performed as that.
And hockey has another team, the Hockeyroos.
But one thing is clear: not only do these athletes deserve our praise and support, they also deserve our admiration for these great achievements while remaining largely amateur.
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The Crowd Says (4) | Page 1 of Comments
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- Football World Cup, hockey, hockey world cup, hockeyroos, Socceroos
September 3rd 2009 @ 11:44am
Republican said | September 3rd 2009 @ 11:44am | Report comment
Not that impressed with Kookas efforts in Canberra recently. They struggled against Malaysia in the final and then again v NZ in Invergargil.
Our girls lost to NZ which is very ordinary. Why for heavens sake this country continues to help the Kiwis in all and sundry is beyond me. NZ’s national womens hockey coach is an Ozzie with our support extending across numerous othre sports in varying capacities.
Surely they are big and ugly enough to help themselves in this respect, they are afterall a sovereign country and not one of our states – yet. At times it is difficult to distinguish whether or not they are a state, given the privelege they derive from the claytons type relationship they have managed to foster over many years.
It would seem that they do have their pav and eat it also.
September 3rd 2009 @ 10:27pm
JiMMM said | September 3rd 2009 @ 10:27pm | Report comment
The matches against Malaysia were disappointing, but I think you might be underestimating the Kiwi’s. Their men’s side is ranked 8 in the world and the women are 11 in the world, and the difference between the top 10 sides in world hockey is not that large.
I think the reason that we keep helping them is so that even when we lose we win, because they wouldn’t have won without the Aussie help.
September 4th 2009 @ 12:12am
Observer said | September 4th 2009 @ 12:12am | Report comment
Clearly you weren’t watching…
Game 1: 8-1 win (as comprehensive as it gets)
Game 2: 0-1 loss (however AUS created the same amount of opportunities (circle penetrations/PCs/goal shots) as they did in Game 1)
Game 3: 11-3 win (9-1 at half time)
Game 4: 1-0 win (registered something like 20 PC’s for the match)
What was disappointing? Young side on the way up… positive results in Europe without senior players… talk to me?
September 4th 2009 @ 9:11am
JiMMM said | September 4th 2009 @ 9:11am | Report comment
You are right there I wasn’t watching the games as they were held in Adelaide and Canberra, and they weren’t televised in any manner (a single video highlight on the Hockey Australia website doesn’t count), so it’s a bit hard if you don’t have a fair amount of disposable income. In fact I haven’t seen anything of the Kookaburra’s or the Hockeyroo’s as they haven’t played a game up my way this year.
The parts you highlighted in games 2 and 4 are exactly why that series was dissapointing, to have that many opportunities and lose one of the games and only score one goal in the other is dissapointing. I can’t believe that anyone in the coaching structure or the playing team would have thought of those 2 results as anything but a disappointment given the number of opportunities that the team had. This is especially true when as you point out a very young side had an absolutely excellent tour of Europe against some of the top sides in the world.