New year, new tournament with a fast twist of Field Hockey called the FIH Hockey5 World Cup being rolled out for the first time nearly two weeks ago in Muscat, Oman. The pitch size has also been reduced from its normal layout where you only can have five players each on the field including four substitutes on the bench; So does the time as well that will last up to 30 minutes with two 15-minute halves & a short two-minute break in between. Yes, our Aussie Men’s & Women’s teams may have performed below expectations as hoped for when it comes to a shot in the medal Playoff rounds other than the consolation win v Zambia in the Women’s tournament. However, they did okay with some mixed results in the classification round before both Aussie teams wrapped up their respective campaigns on a high following their 11th playoff wins v New Zealand (men) & Fiji (women). Meanwhile, both men’s and women’s winners belongs to the Netherlands who were outstanding all along to take home their respective gold medals for Hockey5’s first ever World Cup tournament. In the women, the Netherlands defeated India very comfortably before it even ended towards full-time 7-2. Then few days later for the men’s, although they were equalised by Malaysia at 1-1 after opening the account first earlier on; but they didn’t stop attacking though having stretched their winning lead before the men stood up tall like their country’s female team in the gold medal final 5-2. What a week it has been where one country has won it all by the team in Orange named the Netherlands.
Now it’s back to regular match hockey with the FIH Pro League in full swing again after the Christmas and New Year’s period where the Hockeyroos (women) lost to China 3-0 yesterday to start their new season campaign while the Men Kookaburra’s first game of the year will come this Sunday 11 pm AEDT v Spain as all of this month’s series of matches are held in India.