WAIS Athletes Named in 2015 Women’s National Senior Squad

Published On: 26 February 2015

Kathryn Slattery has earned slection onto into the senior Australian women's national squad

Hockey Australia has announced a 23-athlete women’s National Senior Squad and a 16-athlete National Development Squad as it looks towards its Olympic qualifying events this year and to the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

The senior group includes the introduction of WAIS scholarship holder Kathryn Slattery – who represented Australia at last year’s Champions Trophy in Argentina. She joins WAIS Olympian Ashleigh Nelson in the squad, whilst WAIS program athletes Kyra Flynn and Penny Squibb were named in the 16-member development squad.

Announcing the squads, Australian women’s National Coach Adam Commens said, “Halfway towards the Olympic Games our major focus needs to be on qualifying for Rio and the Games themselves. But we need to have an eye for the future and the selections reflect that with a number of younger players coming into the centralised program.

While Olympic qualification is the primary target in 2015, the squads are representative of an ongoing push to improve the depth of talent in Australia’s women’s hockey program.

“Our national squad is deliberately quite tight with 23 athletes that we feel deserve to be in the top group and who will be afforded the majority of opportunities in 2015, but we have the option to promote players from the development squad at any time during the year.”

The Hockeyroos have two opportunities to qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games. They must finish in the top three at the FIH World League Semi Final tournament in Antwerp, Belgium in June or win the Oceania Cup in Stratford, New Zealand, in October.

The team’s first outing this year will be at an eight-nation tournament, the Hawke’s Bay Festival, in New Zealand from 11-19 April.

Runners-up last year, Australia’s Hockeyroos (world #2) will be joined in Hawke’s Bay by Argentina (#3), New Zealand (#4), China (#5), USA (#8), Korea (#9), Japan (#10) and India (#13).

Selection for the 2015 national squads was based on performances at the 2014 Australian Hockey League, preparation for the 2014 Champions Trophy and performances at the competition, HockeyAustralia’s national junior camp on the Gold Coast in December and the national ‘super camp’ held in Perth this month.

-HockeyAus