After a week-long preparation camp in Qatar, England will already be settling into their rooms in Delhi, with the European Champions being thrown into the deep end with a tough opening match against Australia we will see just how prepared they really are. unfortunately for England both Matt Dally and Simon Mantell haven’t made it as far as India due to ill-timed injuries. Matt Dally was ruled out after tearing his Hamstring during the camp and Simon Mantell has a severe foot injury.
England should still be confident though, there is more than enough talent present not just in their starting line up but within the entire squad, after all in order to become European Champions you have to overcome Germany (current World Champions), Spain and The Netherlands something that Australia have recently struggled to do.
England’s head coach Jason Lee will need to make sure he can keep his squad focused on the task at hand, especially as fears of safety for all of the participating teams echos around training camps. This is where the psychological battle lies for Lee’s team, they must concentrate on games as they come, something that may have been missing at the recent champions trophy. England didn’t look negative but the flowing hockey which they can play wasn’t there either, was it the high calibre matches that got the better of this 18 man squad before they even stepped out onto the pitch?
Speculation aside England have a tough group drawing the Hosts India, Australia, Pakistan, Spain and South Africa, tough? yes, but the squad can easily compete with these teams and after being ranked 6th in the world, they have finally been recognised as a dangerous outfit that no team should be naive about.
India’s Hockey Federation have assured all teams taking part that the security plans are flawless and everything shall run smoothly, yet with alleged threats from groups targeting sporting events – naming cricket’s Indian Premier League and the Commonwealth Games, as well as the World Cup, as potential targets it begs the question why do we even let events happen in areas of instability?
Fingers crossed everything runs smoothly and the England perform at their best and start their campaign with a good win over Australia. Anyone interested in watching the game can find it being streamed live on the England Hockey website www.englandhockey.co.uk
