Hi There
I hope you are all enjoying my new site. It has been up and running for nearly two months now so I thought I would take the chance to get some feedback and hopefully lots of questions from you, the readers. Let me know what sorts of skills and tips would be helpful, what you like and what you want more of.
It is a resource aimed at helping other goalkeepers so if you have a question please submit it in the comment box below.
Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you
Rach
Hi Rach
Quick question for you and open to debate
Where do you think the future lies for the mainstream International teams?
When i was younger (and this is many years ago) the main teams were GB, Australia, Pakistan, Holland and Germany etc, but i would never have thought that many of the unknown teams back then would be taking over from or competing with the main ones such as Argentina and Spain to name just 2, I never would have thought they would be main contenders for Olympic Medals and even teams such as Belgium, Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand all playing decent hockey
Do you think the mainstream teams over the next couple of years will get left behind as the game develops more?
Wow, interesting question. I think we are very lucky in many ways that hockey is so popular and so strong world wide. As players it means we get to go to some pretty interesting places whilst still competing against top level teams. In the women’s game all top ten nations are very close in standard. Of course, teams like Argentina are very deserving of their number one world ranking as they play at a high level more consistently than any other team but come London 2012 I think its anyones game.
Do you think they will eventually change the format of the game? I.e reduce the number of players, change from 2×35 min halves to 4×15 min quarters… Sort of like the structure your soon to be playing in for your upcoming tournament.
No I don’t think so. Maybe as an alternative like our super series but not replacing the normal structure and style. I guess we will have to wait and see how the super series goes
By the way
Great Site
Tony
Hello Rachael, I am sure that you like shoot outs more than penalty strokes because your chance of saving the shot increase. So, how do you analise a player to make a right choice?
I ask this because we don’t use shoot out to define a game in Argentina…well at least not until now.
Do you mean how do you know which way they are flicking on a stroke?
exactly, how do you know that?
I dont know where someone is going to flick. There are little cues you can pick up for example how close they stand to the ball, the angle of their stick but generally you just have to wait on it and react once they shoot. Some people prefer to go high and others low but I believe you are better off not thinking too much or predicting where they may go. Just watch the ball and go at it 100%
and what about shoot out?
If you mean a one on one shoot out then its slightly different. Check out my recent post on one v ones 🙂
For flick i always look at the flickers eyes and 98% they tend to look at where they intend to put the ball twice. While approaching the where the penalty spot and while waiting for the umpires okey
True but be careful as plenty of people look the wrong way to throw you off.
There will be a number of influencing factors to the format of the game of hockey some of which you will see now in the European League and soon in the New Aussie format. Both are there trying to make the game more appealing to a wider audience, whilst generating more revenue through advertising etc. (Note new Investec deal with England Ladies)
Overall I think that the format of the International game is unlikely to change radically anytime soon. The FIH have been slow to accept change at times and I am not convinced that they would suddenly change the rules on the back of a continental tournament success.