Canada tour provided valuable exposure for our PAHF Cup pursuit – Fernandes

Jun 19, 2013 Sports

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The Guyana National Women’s Hockey squad recently returned home after participating as a guest team in the Canadian National Championships which was staged from June 12 – 16 in Toronto, Canada.

The Guyanese lost nine of the ten matches which they played, drawing one in the process, but according to Head Coach Philip Fernandes the experience gained was valuable and will serve as good preparations ahead of their scheduled participation in the PAHF Cup in Mendoza, Argentina this September.
Fernandes, who has been at the helm of the women’s national team for some time now, gave the media a review on the benefits of the tour and the team’s performances throughout the championships.
The Head Coach said that the visiting contingent arrived in Canada on June 8th to participate in 4 training matches prior to the commencement of the competition. Here are some of his responses to questions posed:
What was your overall impression of the trip in terms of its success or failure?
We anticipated having difficult competition when we chose Canada as our destination.  The quality of hockey in Canada is very high and we particularly wanted to test our players against the pressure of better opposition as there is more to gain that way.  I must confess, however, that I was hopeful that we would have produced better results than we did.  The team, though, was placed under tremendous pressure, especially in the early matches when our full complement had not yet arrived, which provided an excellent training ground for our players.
Four of our players were unable to make the beginning of the tour due to visa issues, illness and educational issues as the tour clashed with ‘A’ level exams.  The arrival of goalkeeper Alysa Xavier, however, 6 days into the tour, provided a significant change in the team’s performance and general attitude toward the game.  While hockey is a team game and not an individual sport, our relatively small pool of players, limits our ability to replace key players on the team.  To put this in perspective, while each province in Canada selects from over 1,000 players, we made our selection from less than 50 senior players.
Our players still benefitted a great deal from the experience and improved visibly with each day.  This was particularly evident when they played the same Ontario team on Sunday 9th June and suffered a 0-7 loss, but then reduced this to a narrow 0-1 defeat just one week later on June 15th.  The players always improve during the course of our visits to countries with artificial pitches as they become familiar with the surface.
We could have gone to other destinations in the region and received better results, but not learn as much.  Therefore, I consider our tour to have been a success and we have achieved quite a lot in terms of advancing the quality of our team.  I must also mention the benefit of creating strong links with the Guyanese community in Toronto who came out to show good support for our team.  Several of those persons were instrumental in assisting with the logistics of the trip and there was no shortage of support from the Guyanese community in supplying water, sports drinks, snacks and whatever else was needed.
Were you satisfied with the team’s effort and results?
I was very disappointed with our team’s performance in the first few games as it took them a long time to re-adjust to the playing conditions.  The weather on the first weekend may have been a factor also as it was very cold and rainy and our players had difficulty getting properly warmed up to play and keeping warm.  However, as the days progressed, the players became more successful with their artificial turf skills and began to develop the confidence to make the plays which they had been practicing on grass for so many months.
I was pleased with the attitude of the players to the task at hand as they showed great determination to improve their performances and it showed on the pitch.  The tour schedule was very hectic as we had arranged matches every day along with video review sessions in order for them to learn from their mistakes and develop the instinct to adjust their tactical game to suit the opposition.  Towards the end of the tour, their performances were greatly improved, not only in terms of the final score, but in terms of general ball possession and competitiveness with the opposition.  Our major Achilles heel now remains converting our chances to goals as we only scored 7 goals in our 10 matches, while we conceded much more than this.
What were the major factors in your opinion that creates the discrepancy between the two nations where field hockey is concerned?
Clearly the biggest advantage against the top nations in the region is that they have several artificial pitches on which they can train and play while our players train on grass.  The game is very different on the two surfaces and so our players, whenever competing overseas, have to quickly adapt to using different skills, playing the game at a different pace and make tactical adjustments that suit the artificial playing surface.
While the talent pool in Guyana can match anywhere else in the world, we need to develop more players and widen the pool from which we can choose our national selection.  This would ensure a higher level of quality in terms of talent available for selection to represent the country.
Of course there are many other factors which mostly point to financial resources.  The Canadian National team is about to embark on a three week tour to Ireland, Scotland and England to prepare for the PAHF Cup in September.  They have just finished hosting Argentina who was on a similar tour.
How can we reduce this disparity and what plans are there to achieve this?
There is very little we can do about the difference in financial resources available to the sport, so we have to look at ways of improving what we can.  The first goal we need to achieve is increasing our player numbers.  This can best be done by continued focus on our schools programme.  Young people in schools have been very receptive to our coaches and we have had great success in attracting school-aged kids to hockey in recent years.  A drive spearheaded by men’s junior national coach Robert Fernandes, has even resulted in the addition of Saints as a new club in hockey, coming out of the Saint Stanislaus College junior programme.  We now need to duplicate this effort in other schools.  There are such programmes beginning in other schools, but what is really needed is full-time coaches to do this since our volunteer coaches can only spare limited time off of work to facilitate this.
In addition to increasing our numbers, we must find a way to fund an artificial pitch here in Guyana for hockey.  The cost of a pitch is G$20M and so it is quite an expensive undertaking.  We have exhausted our pleas to the Pan American Hockey Federation who has indicated that they do not have room in their budget to assist at this time.  Guyana is the only hockey-playing nation in the Caribbean now without its own artificial pitch and to remain competitive without one is becoming nearly impossible.
What is next for the Guyana Women’s hockey team?
The Guyana women’s hockey team has qualified and hopes to attend the PAHF Cup in Mendoza, Argentina this coming September.  Guyana was ranked at the bottom of the PAHF in 2010 when the team attended the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games.  We finished ahead of Bermuda and Puerto Rico which enabled us to participate in the PAHF Challenge in Brazil the following year.  Once again we finished ahead of higher ranked teams in Brazil, Paraguay and Bermuda qualifying us for a spot in the PAHF Cup in Argentina this September.  The PAHF Cup features the top 8 teams in all of the Americas by virtue of this qualifying process and is itself a World Cup qualifier with the winning team receiving a spot to represent the Americas.  Guyana joins Argentina, USA, Canada, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico and Trinidad in the PAHF Cup.
Guyana’s participation in the PAHF Cup will in the very least maintain their ranking position enabling them to qualify for a spot in the next CAC Games in Mexico 2014.
Meanwhile, below are the results of the matches that Guyana participated in while in Canada:
Guyana lost to Ontario under-23 0-6; Guyana lost to University of Toronto 3-7; Guyana lost to A&C Club 0-4; Guyana drew with OKD 3-3;
Competition started – Guyana lost to Canada National under-21 0-11; Guyana lost to British Columbia 0-14
Guyana’s full team finally arrives – Guyana lost to Alberta 0-2; Guyana lost to Ontario 0-2; Guyana lost to Ontario under-23 0-1; Guyana lost to Alberta 1-3

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