Bouyed by a rich history of success at the tournament, Orange’s Eddie Bone and her Hockeyroos are just over a fortnight away from kicking off their campaign for a fourth consecutive Commonwealth Games gold medal win.
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Sitting at No.5 on the Federation of International Hockey’s world rankings, Bone and her Hockeyroos actually enter the Gold Coast Games as the third seeds, with top two seeds England and New Zealand expected to be Australia’s biggest challengers.
The Hockeyroos will face New Zealand in the pool stage along with Scotland, Canada and Ghana while England – a side boasting a number of Great Britain’s Olympic gold medal-winners – will contest the other side of the draw.
Coincidentally, it was New Zealand that knocked the Hockeyroos out at the quarter-final stage of the 2016 Rio Olympics too.
“[We have] a proud history of success at the Commonwealth Games. We know that, but that also means nothing to our group at the moment,” Hockeyroos coach Paul Gaudoin said, Australia has won four of five gold medals since hockey was introduced in 1998.
“We need to write our own history. We need to go out there and perform and join the group who’ve won medals before, in particular gold medals.”
Bone is already a part of that group having tasted success at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Scotland, and despite being ranked lower than England and the Black Sticks, Gaudoin says his side will enter next month’s tournament confident.
“We have had some success against New Zealand recently (winning the 2017 Oceania Cup) so it’s reasonably even with them,” he said.
“We know England or Great Britain are Olympic champions, so we understand where we sit, but we’re also confident we can do the job we want.”
The fact this year’s game are in Australia makes a huge difference too, he says.
“I think it’s an advantage,” he said.
“We know where we are. We know the environment. We understand those pressures.
“Once you go into a Commonwealth Games village, things change as well, you can potentially be anywhere in the world. But we’ll have great support.”
Bone and the Hockeyroos land at the Gold Coast next Wednesday, their first game will be against Canada on Thursday, April 5.