HOCKEY: Kookaburras coach Graham Reid has named an experienced squad as Australia’s men’s hockey team attempts to qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games, admitting, “We’re approaching the World League Semi Final like we would an Olympics.”

Next month’s Fintro Hockey World League Semi Final in Antwerp, Belgium, comes with the incentive of a place at Rio 2016 if the Kookaburras can secure a top three finish in the ten team tournament.

Of the 18-man squad, 14 were World Cup winners just a year ago while 13 were part of the team that won Commonwealth Games gold last August.

The exception is the inclusion of 18 year-old forward Blake Govers, the brother of Olympic bronze medallist Kieran, who is selected following a series of impressive performances in Tasmania at the start of the month. The Wollongong youngster scored in each of his three appearances against Pakistan, Korea and New Zealand in Hobart to earn the call-up.

Jamie Dwyer will feature in Antwerp having recently become Australia’s most capped player ever, overtaking Jay Stacy’s record of 321 appearances at the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia where the 36 year-old scored eight times.

Kieran Govers and Matthew Swann return from injury and duties in the Dutch Hoofdklasse league while Fergus Kavanagh also re-joins the group following a season in the Netherlands.

Four athletes could be in line for milestone appearances with Eddie Ockenden approaching 250 career matches, Fergus Kavanagh, 200, Kieran Govers, 100 and Tyler Lovell, 50.

Kookaburras Head Coach Graham Reid said, “Our main objective is to qualify for the Olympics. To do that, we’ve picked as strong a team as we could.

“Before our recent matches in Hobart we asked the guys to give us everything. What they showed was that we could have picked any combination of 18 from the group we had available.”

Commenting on Blake Govers’ inclusion, Reid said, “We brought him in for the Hobart games and he performed pretty well. He’s a class drag flicking option and we want to see how he will handle this level.”

The Kookaburras must finish in the top three of the ten team competition to earn Australia’s place at the Olympic Games in Rio. They will face India (world ranking #9), Pakistan (#10), Poland (#17) and France (#18) in Pool A before coming up against the likes of Belgium (#4), Great Britain (#5), Malaysia (#12), Ireland (#14) and China (#31) in the latter stages.

On Australia’s opponents, Reid said, “We never go and play around with form so we’ll be trying to win our pool and qualify for the quarter finals, then the semi finals and the main match. India and Pakistan, and Belgium and England are the biggest threats. Belgium and England are both ‘top five’ ranked countries and India and Pakistan both made the medal matches at the Champions Trophy in December.

“France and Poland are the two unknowns. We’d expect France to be pretty difficult because most of their team from the 2013 Junior World Cup, where they finished second, will have advanced. Poland is a world class indoor team but is a team we don’t know particularly well so we’ll be trying to study them a bit.”

Glenn Turner, Jeremy Hayward, Joel Carroll and Tom Craig were unavailable for selection due to injury.

The Kookaburras will head to Europe on 9 June, playing two matches against Great Britain at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London and GB’s base at Bisham Abbey before heading to Antwerp for the World League.

Kookaburras Squad for Fintro Hockey World League Semi Final
Antwerp, Belgium
Athlete (Hometown, State)
Daniel Beale (Brisbane, QLD)
Kiel Brown (Toowoomba, QLD)
Andrew Charter (Canberra, ACT)
Chris Ciriello (Melbourne, Victoria)
Tim Deavin (Launceston, Tasmania)
Jamie Dwyer (Rockhampton, QLD)
Matt Gohdes (Rockhampton, QLD)
Blake Govers (Wollongong, NSW)
Kieran Govers (Wollongong, NSW)
Fergus Kavanagh (Geraldton, WA)
Mark Knowles (Rockhampton, QLD)
Tyler Lovell (Perth, WA)
Eddie Ockenden (Hobart, TAS)
Simon Orchard (Maitland, NSW)
Matthew Swann (Mackay, QLD)
Jake Whetton (Brisbane, QLD)
Tristan White (Wollongong, NSW)
Aran Zalewski (Margaret River, WA)

Kookaburras Fixtures
Date - Time (local time / AEST) - Fixture
13 June - Test: Kookaburras v Great Britain, London
15 June - Test: Kookaburras v Great Britain, Bisham Abbey
21 June - 18:00hrs / 02:00hrs (+1) - World League: Kookaburras v France
24 June - 20:00hrs / 04:00hrs (+1) - World League: Kookaburras v Pakistan
26 June - 20:00hrs / 04:00hrs (+1) - World League: Kookaburras v Poland
28 June - 16:00hrs / 00:00hrs (+1) - World League: Kookaburras v India
1 July - TBC - World League: Quarter Final
3 July - TBC - World League: Semi Final / Classification
5 July - TBC - World League: Medal Matches / Classification

HOCKEY AUSTRALIA