Five WAIS Athletes Named for Kookaburras Duty
The Kookaburras have continued to be cautious with injuries, ruling out key players for an upcoming month long tour of Europe in order to make sure their team is strong in the long term.
With just over 12 months to go before the 2012 London Olympics the Kookaburras will begin to ramp up their program with a series of matches throughout Europe, but will do so without the services of many of their top players with Des Abbott, four time world player of the year Jamie Dwyer and Graeme Begbie all remaining on the side line with long term injuries. Veteran striker Grant Schubert has also been sidelined for a substantial period with an achilles injury while penalty corner specialist Luke Doerner has been booked in for hip surgery.
A cautious approach has also been taken with Liam De Young and Rob Hammond to monitor recent hamstring injuries that are not considered serious.
All seven injured players were members of the 2010 World Cup gold medal squad, but Kookaburras coach Ric Charlesworth said the tournaments in Europe will further develop some of the younger players.
“We have a range of players who are unavailable due to injury including guys like Des Abbott, Jamie Dwyer and Graeme Begbie who we expect will be right to play by August. And then there is Rob Hammond and Liam De Young who we are being cautious with to make sure we get them right because we have a fair bit of hockey to play in the second half of the year. So we still have some injury concerns to some players, but we also have players who have only played 15-20 matches that by this time next year we hope we will have got 50 games into them,” said Charlesworth.
The Kookaburras will play two test matches against Spain between July 14-16 before competing in a 4 Nations tournament in Monchengladbach, Germany against Germany, Spain and the Netherlands.
They will then travel to Paris to compete in a 5 Nations Challenge tournament between France, Korea, Argentina and South Africa.
The squads for the European tour include five AIS-WAIS athletes with Fergus Kavanagh and Jonathon Charlesworth selected for both campaigns, whilst Brent Dancer will play up til the four nations tournament before heading home, where Kiel Brown and Trent Mitton will join up for the Australian team for the five nations tournament.
After competing in the Azlan Shah Cup in May, a tournament that they won which was also their first hit out of 2011, Charlesworth said that with the London Olympics only a year away, this European tour was an important stepping stone.
“We have a good blend of players, seven players have been included from our recent Azlan Shah Cup tournament and we have some experienced players coming back in. This is an important tour for the team because it will give us a chance to measure ourselves against some of the best European teams,” said Charlesworth.
Due to last years hectic schedule in which the Kookaburras became the first team in history to win the World Cup, Champions Trophy and Commonwealth Games in the one year, the Kookaburras schedule in 2011 has been quiet to date. However this European tour will begin a busy period for the Kookaburras which will include the Oceania Cup and International Super Series in October and then the Champions Trophy in India in December.
–Hockey Australia
