Commens inducting young players in the Hockeyroos squad for 2012 London Olympics
The Aussie Women Hockey team inducted seven new young players for the national squad, which are being considered for the 2012 London Olympics.
The team was introduced by the coach Adam Commens, who planned at having a few new players to pace up the striking ability of the team. Therefore, a little time and effort was spent by him in the January’s national training camp. Almost 60 players from across
the country participated in that camp. However, the selection resulted in an almost one third change in the Hockeyroos squad of 2010.
The seven who got selected are Jill Dwyer, Bianca Greenshields, Marnie Hudson, Kandice Olivieri, Jodie Schultz, Jade Warrender and Kellie White. Jade Close was also selected in the national squad for the first time ever. Previously, she only played six senior
matches in the year 2010.
Commens felt quite relieved and confident by the level of talent he got to see in the training camp. According to him, the level of talent shown in the camp by players, made it hard for him to select the final 24, but he did so. The 24 players those he selected
were undoubtedly a stand-out.
The coach revealed that the new ones shall help the team in getting a good attacking line and scores, where the team was lacking in the current period. For matching up the team with the physical European teams, he deliberately aimed at players having an
athletic build and high physical stamina for joining the squad.
Keeping in view the short time remaining before the 2012 London Olympics, he thought it was the time to get new players experienced and trained for a good face-off in the Olympics. For this, the coach has arranged a few big time teams’ confrontations before
the Olympic event and said that it would be good to see how these new girls get to handle such squads on a short notice of few months.
The first opportunity that approached their way was a series of matches against World’s Number One team, Argentina, USA and Germany in Argentina from February 9-20, 2011.
Commens said, “There is only 18 months left until the London Olympics so we need to work quickly and one way to do that is to expose our players against quality teams as often as possible.”
After some positives and negatives Commens, changed a few of names out of the seven selected that included Jacklyn McRae and Georgina Parker, who are currently playing the 2011 Rabo Champions Trophy in Netherlands, whereas Kandice Olivieri, Jill Dwyer and
Bianca Greenshields were not included in the eighteen-member squad for the Champions Trophy.
A former player of the Hockeyroos Squad, Renee Trost also managed to make her place in the national squad in January. Trost was not to be found ever since she was called to the 2008 Beijing Olympics on an urgent situation. Commens commented that she is physically
fit to be the part of the squad, after seeing her performance in the camp.
Commens has also awarded a few Australian Inter-School Scholarships (AIS) to six new and young players, not a part of the Hockeyroo Squad. He did this in view of securing the future players to the right place for them to be in. He plans to allow them a chance
of playing the Olympics, but if they do not, they shall be polished for beyond the Olympics events.
Meanwhile, the team’s current performance at Netherland is unsatisfactory as the team failed to make it into the medal-winning round, Pool C and will just fight for positions in the Pool D round of the Champions Trophy.
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