It is fair to say that every sportsperson at almost every level when they go out to play, aims to do their best. For the majority, it is about doing your best and having fun, enjoying playing, that is a key motivator.
Only very few set out to break records. That is why the line, ‘medals are for life, records are just on loan’ is so pertinent. Being the best you can be is the goal.
Of course sometimes teams and players are on the wrong side of records. They are part of a game ,or a season that no doubt they wish they weren’t, and often their fans feel the same way.
As a fan of Swindon Town Football Club this writer was more than pleased when in the 2023/24 English Premier League season Sheffield United, the oldest independent club still playing football in the world, conceded 104 goals in an English Premier League season. Why? The answer is simple, because since the 1993/94 season Swindon had not only been the only team in history to concede 100 goals in a Premier League season, but had done so in their only season at that level. Now they were no longer alone. Now there was a team that had let in more goals. In fact they had let in 104 in 38 games, Swindon had let in 100 in 42 games. They had only managed three wins and seven draws, Swindon had won five games and drawn 15. An unwelcome record was no longer ours.
Former Australian Cricket captain Greg Chappell who was one of the finest batsman the country has produced knows all about a bad run. After scoring a regal 201 against Pakistan at The Gabba, Greg Chappell scored four ducks in a row. This included two consecutive golden ducks. He scored three more ducks that season, extending his tally to seven. Many remember those ducks ahead of the fact that he scored 24 Test hundreds and three in One Day Internationals. It is a record he would not want to be remembered for.
Earlier this week the Australian women’s hockey team managed to avoid a record that none of the players would have wanted to be a part of when they drew with Spain in the FIH Pro League in Hobart. This was a game that they were winning 2-0, but were pegged back by Spain who scored in the penultimate minute to draw 2-2, and then as is usually the norm for the team equalising, Spain went on to claim a bonus point by winning the shoot-out. (The Price of Conceding Late).
Had the Hockeyroos lost that game they would have lost their fifth consecutive game.
This is something that is virtually unheard of from Australia’s Women’s hockey team, who until recent times were arguably the nations most successful women’s sporting team; some would argue with three Olympic gold medals, two World Cup wins and six Champion’s Trophies they still are.
You have to go back to the very start of this national team to find a run where the team has faced so many consecutive defeats. Making their International debut in August 1914 the Australians lost to England 11-3. Their next game would be in 1927 also against England, which was also lost. In fact they lost their first eight international matches. The first win coming against Rhodesia in Gwalo in 1930.
The team then went on another run of five defeats before they managed a draw against South Africa.
Since that time the closest the team has come to matching five or eight consecutive defeats was 77 years later in January 2007 when the team also lost four in a row.
What is a major concern to many is that following another loss to China the team has failed to win a game now in their past nine games. They have played nine matches drawn three and lost six. It is important to point out that despite what some newspapers have reported, and despite Hockey Australia stating “Later on, the Hockeyroos claimed a thrilling shootout victory over Ireland” and then adding “With no separation on the scoreboard, the result was decided in a shootout,” this was not a victory.
The Rules of the FIH Pro League state, as they have since the start of the competition back in 2019 in section 4.2 Competition Plan and Ranking in the League in subsection c The following points will be awarded for each Match :
i three (3) points to the winner in normal time;
ii one (1) pointto the winner of a shootout following a draw plus one (1) bonus point, making a total of two (2) points.
iii one (1) point to the loser of the shootout, in the event of a draw;
iv no points to the loser of a match in normal time.
Nowhere does it state that by winning the shoot out does a team win the match! Unlike in a knockout competition where a shoot out is used to determine a winner. In the FIH Pro League and a few other competitions both teams in a draw receive one point, but the winner of the shoot out gains a bonus point. It is not as many report, and incredibly many of the National Associations claim, a victory!
It would appear that the FIH itself also does very little to ensure that their member nations playing in their competition get this right.
What is a real concern for Australia is in the past nine matches this team has only managed to score seven goals and has conceded 21.
Following the Oceania Cup Katrina Powell was sacked as coach, and South African Rhett Halkett, the first non-Australian coach of the team took over. In the Oceania Cup against New Zealand the games saw both teams win 1-0 and the deciding match end 1-1, with New Zealand winning a shoot out and booking a place at the World Cup.
In the three shoot outs that have taken place in the three drawn games of this run of nine games without a victory Australia has won one, against Ireland.
Sacking the new coach is not the answer, but what these results have done is highlight that there is a very big problem with the women’s side of the game. Why has a team that was so dominant for so long fallen so far?
As one former player from the era that saw Australia win back-to-back gold medals at the Olympic games stated, “What do you expect if you keep on trying to do things the same way?”
There has to be an in depth review of the whole program from talent identification along with the development programs themselves. Is the program picking athletes and trying to make them hockey players, rather than trying to improve the athletic ability of natural players? Several years ago at the national trials one player who admittedly lacked pace, was a standout. They had learned to compensate for that lack of pace and read the game superbly. They were not selected for the national squad. The reason given was their performance on the beep test! Was this the right decision?
What has also been a concern is how many players have come into the side and in their first 20 games have been scoring at better than a goal a game. By the time they have reached 50 or more games they are scoring at less than a goal every two games. Why? Is it the team playing a certain way, and not to their strengths? Is it the opposition have worked them out? Or is it that no one has taken the time to help them adjust their game when being restricted by defenders who have done their homework? So many questions, but are they being asked, and answers found?
In the recent games in Hobart people will say that key players were rested because Australia have the World Cup Qualifiers coming up. The first question is who agreed to play Pro League matches so close to these qualifiers? Who scheduled these games? Hockey Australia probably never questioned the timing of the fixtures as they arrogantly thought that they would beat New Zealand, so it would never have crossed their mind the selection problems it could cause.
Even if you pull key players out this was still an Australian team taking the field. Those players have international caps for playing. There can be no excuses. The job of the coach and the High performance unit is to make sure that these players are ready to make that step up. The Oceania qualifiers were in September, so they have had almost five months to prepare.
One feels for the players. Sadly it would appear that standards within the sport have clearly dropped to unprecedented levels, and not just on the pitch. Hockey Australia always had a reputation for having the most up to date website in terms of games played, caps and results. You go to their website today and the games record has not been updated since the 21st of June 2025. When this writer previously questioned this they were told that it was “too time consuming.”
As a national sporting body, just like a club in any league, a press release after a game is a tool to advise the media outlets, – who these days rarely attend games in person, – to the fact that there was a game, and importantly the result and the goal scorers. Most media outlets do not require a wonderfully crafted match report, they just want the facts. However, they want the facts in a timely fashion. Receiving the match report the morning the day after the game has been played is not going to garner coverage. As they say in the trade no one is going to run with yesterday’s news!
As one hockey-lover quipped ‘maybe they are delaying the reports so that they don’t get coverage, while the team is in such a slump.’
It would be interesting to know is whether Hockey Australia have a media plan should the Hockeyroos current run continue at the World Cup Qualifiers in Santiago, Chile. The Australia’s women’s hockey team has played in every women’s hockey World Cup that has taken place since 1981; they did not play in the first three editions. In the 12 editions that they have participated in only twice has the team finished outside the top four! They are in fact the third most successful nation at this event, so it would be unprecedented if they failed to qualify.
Australia should make it out of their pool, which would see them progress to the semi-finals. The top three teams in each of the two Women’s qualifying tournaments will qualify for the World Cup. If they happened to lose their semi-final and also the play off for third and fourth they could well still qualify as the highest ranked team to finish fourth in the two qualifying events. At present only England, who are ranked seventh to Australia’s eighth, are above them in the world rankings of teams yet to qualify.
The run of form heading into these games has to be a very real concern, the second worst run of results in 100 years. The first time the team has gone nine games without a win. A great deal of work will need to be done before the team most likely meets Japan, Ireland or Canada in the semi finals. These will be extremely tough matches, as none will fear the Australian team as they may have previously. Ireland already beat Australia in the Pro League, so they have shown that this side can be beaten.
Hopefully the players and all involved have been stung by the recent run of results, and being part of an unwanted record in Hockeyroos history, and they can unite and rise once again as one.
Even if they do, lessons have to be learnt. Clearly there are still problems within the women’s game in Australia in terms of the development of players. (Paying the Price for the Past?)
One feels that it is indeed a time to change the way things are being done. This was evident when former Dutch captain Eva Drummond (formerly de Goede) played for the Perth Thundersticks in the 2024 Hockey One League. Drummond had retired from International hockey in April that year after 266 games for the Dutch, and numerous gold medals. Drummond showed that she was still head and shoulders the best player in the competition, and while many celebrated what a coup it was having her grace the competition, only a few wise heads pointed out how her performances had shown where the Australian game was at.
If you only see what you want to see, how can you ever change? The Women’s program has been crying out for change for a long time, hopefully this run of results has not been in vain, that it is the catalyst to serious change.
”
