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Hot form keeps Kookaburras lauching

2010-03-13 17:03:00

FOR those hardy hockey nuts like me who made the effort to get up in the early hours of Thursday morning to watch the Kookaburras beat the Dutch in the World Cup semi-finals, the reward was one of the all-time great games of field hockey.

Australia winning 2-1 definitely helped form my view but I, like the commentators, was blown away by the speed, skill and smarts displayed for 70 pulsating minutes. Just like the AFL, the game has got a lot faster in the past few years, but especially so in the past 12 months since the significant rule change to allow players to play on from a breach.

This has allowed clever players to break the lines by taking the free quickly and made it harder for defences to slow the game down with flooding. The likes of Jamie Dwyer and Teun De Nooijer - the two best players in the world - have exploited the rule in similar fashion to the way Gary Ablett plays on from a free kick, zips through defences and opens up forward thrusts. If I was a soccer official, I would be pushing for the same rule change because when I watched a game of English football immediately after the hockey semi-final it looked decidedly pedestrian.

On that note it's a mystery why hockey still hasn't been embraced by a wider audience and why someone like Rupert Murdoch hasn't grabbed the game and built it into a marketable product, especially through Asia where there is an underlying love and understanding of the beauty of the game.

It was fun earlier in the week when Australia played India and I had to explain to my eight-year-old son why the crowd were screaming hysterically from the push back to start the game. ''That's India,'' I said. ''They still love hockey even though their national team has been a disappointment.''

Apparently TV ratings within India have rivalled those of the recent one-day cricket series - some effort and an indication of a sleeping giant that needs awakening.

In Australia the game seems to be thriving if my local club Camberwell is any indication, with it now ranking as the largest sporting club in Booroondara with junior teams overflowing.

Tonight's gold-medal game against Germany promises to be another classic encounter to rival last December's Champions Trophy final in Melbourne. The Australians came back from 3-1 down to win 5-3. The Germans won't give as much room as the Dutch, so with fewer chances it will likely come down to making the most of the crumbs. To score early will be critical to force the Germans to abandon their defensive patterns and take risks. It won't be easy but most Australian hockey fans feel this team is as good as any we've seen over the past 30 years of sustained success.

David Wansbrough played 202 games for the Kookaburras and was vice-captain of the silver medal-winning team in Barcelona.

Source The age.com.au