This weekend the Hockeyroos and Kookaburras will be in action at the Perth Hockey Stadium in the FIH Pro League, and will be playing against Argentina.
The Pro-League, in only its second year of existence is limping along, following a change of format after year one; which was four years in the making. Sadly a lack of understanding of the rules by the press and some National Associations has led to much confusion in Season Two, which has clearly harmed the integrity of the League.
Irrespective of the competition this weekend’s games against Argentina on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon could be very important for the sport in Western Australia. As well as the games against New Zealand’s Black Sticks on the 16th and 17th of May.
Why?
The reason is that moves are afoot from Victoria to try and lure the High Performance Unit away from Western Australia.
If that were to happen the competition in Western Australia would be greatly depleted, and despite having arguably the best facilities in the country they would most likely rarely be used by the National team. Which would be a shame seeing as the new surface just laid at Curtin University cost $1.5million!
The AIS Hockey Unit was established in Perth in 1984. It was the first AIS sport established away from Canberra. There is a piece of history in itself. The reason that Western Australia was chosen was primarily due to the State’s dominance in National Championships and the number of players that came from the state and went on to represent the nation. Initially this was set up as a development program. The brightest talents in the country were sent to Western Australia, where they worked with the best coaches to improve as players and that prepared them for international competition. For a while they had a team of young talented players that would play against the local clubs. Then players would practice all week with their peers, and then at the weekends were drafted to local clubs to put into practice what they had been taught. It was a hugely successful program.
Australian Hockey was the envy of many across the world, and many nations looked to copy the program to develop their own players in a similar way. The program evolved into being the base for the Kookaburras and Hockeyroos squads, where they trained as a unit all the year around. In 2014, the funding model for sport in Australia changed and the program became known as the Hockey Australia High Performance Unit. This came about because the Australian Institute of Sport announced that it would move away from the delivery of sports programs to become Australia’s strategic high performance sport agency; it is debatable whether it has succeeded in that role. Certainly the press in the past few weeks would say that this was not a good move for Sport in Australia.
This meant that the scholarship program that the athletes were previously under changed. It was now controlled by Hockey Australia rather than the AIS. There were teething problems as some athletes were offered less money than under the previous regime. Hockey Australia at the time claiming that they had to keep some funds to cover the cost of administering these monies. Luckily for all commonsense prevailed and these issues were resolved.
However there was a problem that could not have been foreseen. The mining boom in Western Australia saw the cost of living skyrocket. Electricity prices trebled in a year. Rental properties were in many cases obtained by auction, the highest bidder won the chance to rent for a year.
As an Australian International Hockey squad member life became very hard. Not surprisingly the topic of moving the high performance unit raised its head around the same time.
As someone who has lived in this country over 30 years one aspect of life this writer struggles to comprehend is the failure for each state to recognise that we are one country. Australia wins a sporing event, and one state will establish that event, only then to have other states try and steal it from them! Victoria is the worst culprit as it strives to be known as the “Sporting capital of the Country.”
It will therefore come as no surprise that Victoria is now trying to woo the Hockey Australia High Performance unit to relocate to their currently-being-revamped State Netball and Hockey Centre.
With the Hockey Australia administrative office being based in Melbourne the move makes sense, yet why has the administration always been on the opposite side of the country? Could it be similar to Qantas? In the 1990’s Price Coopers Waterhouse recommended that Qantas move their operations to Perth. They broke down the savings that would result if such a move occurred and how it would benefit the airline in relation to links with Asia. The report and the move were rejected. The reason given was the Qantas executive management did not want to move to Perth. One wonders whether the airline could have saved itself some of the recent heartache if such a move had taken place; we will never know.
The reason given by Hockey Australia for having their administration office in Melbourne never really rang true. Reasons given were that it was close to the hub of big business, it was close to the AIS, it was close to Government, this was where everything happened. Yet the sponsorship manager was based in Perth, and the two major sponsors of the Kookaburras and the Hockeyroos were both Western Australian companies! In fact it is understood that part of that staff member’s wages were paid for by the Western Australian Government for having the High Performance unit in Perth! So why was everyone else on the East coast, especially with so many ways of communicating available in the modern day?
It is understandable that those players who move to Western Australia and get married would find life here hard once they add a baby to that mix. Many do not have their parents, and the child’s grandparents to call upon to relieve them every now and again. Or help the mother when the father is away playing in a tournament. Could or should Hockey Australia have done more to help? Or even possibly their clubs?
In modern times parents seem to be far more involved with their children’s careers than was possibly the case twenty years ago. As a result despite the children being in their early 20’s many parents are now stepping into the mix and complaining that they never see their children play, that their child is struggling with life in Perth, etcetera. To be fair some undoubtedly are, and will be especially if left out of a squad for a key tournament, or if they are injured.
Will moving the established and highly successful High Performance unit to Melbourne change all of this? Or will it simply change the location of the current problems? There will still be players from Queensland, and New South Wales who will be away from their families and now Western Australians will be, instead of Victorians.
There is an argument that Western Australia is still the best option as it is so remote as it keeps those parents at arms length. It makes these young players stand on their own two feet, to gain an independence of thought and mind. Would they get that in any city? Some of them, yes.
There was talk that the Women’s and Men’s high Performance programs would be split. That one would be based in Sydney and one in Melbourne. It is pleasing to hear that all of the recommendations state that they should be kept together. People would be surprised how much of a support network these players are to each other, to move to another state and seperate them would be a massive upheaval, and would undermine that.
Rather than tearing down the house and rebuilding it, surely the better option is to improve the way what currently exists, operates. There are eight state bodies and one National body, when a recent report was published that equated to 164 full or part time staff across the country. Is not the key leadership and strategy? Are all the invested parties singing from the same song sheet?
That would not appear to be the case, as if it were we would not see one state trying to take away the High Performance Unit for their own benefit?
Could the Member Associations in each state not take on specific roles in the development of the game as a whole in Australia rather than trying to score points off each other? Could not a deal be done with a travel company whereby the parents of those in the High Performance unit are given a free or discounted fares to visit their children a couple of times a year, or vice versa? The amount of airline tickets the the teams would be purchasing for the Pro League alone should surely result in some benefits to Hockey Australia, which could and should be passed on to the parents or players. After all they are not being paid a wage. They do not receive super annuation or holiday pay, so if this helps ensure their well-being then it surely is a small price to pay? At the end of the day as this is ‘a scholarship,’ are not those who issue the scholarship in loco parentis? Are there not obligations to ensure their well-being? Just as a University has a responsibility to its students?
The Hockey High Performance unit has been incredibly successful during its time in Perth. It is hard to find a genuine reason why it should be moved. Money, Government money, may well be the carrot, but be warned all that glitters is not gold!
Let us back up the success of the program. Since 1984 in the Men’s World Cup the Kookaburras have won 3 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze. They have only not medalled once. In the Olympic Games they have won one gold, one silver and 4 bronze and come fourth twice. In addition to winning 14 Champions Trophies and every single Commonwealth Games Gold medal. In fact they have won every single International Hockey Tournament that they have competed in at some stage! Not bad at all, and they have not been outside the top four in the World Rankings!
The Hockeyroos in the same period have won two World Cups, and won silver three times. They have finished fourth twice and outside the top four twice. At the Olympic Games they have won 3 Gold, and that is it, having finished outside the medals six times, and coming fourth once. They have won six Champions Trophies, been second six times and won bronze twice. They have won four Commonwealth Games Gold medals and finished with a bronze and a silver in the other two events. They won Silver in the FIH Hockey World League and Silver in the FIH Pro League. So have not quite managed to match the men in terms of winning every tournament they have played in, but they have played in a final in every tournament they have played in. Again that is phenomenal consistency. There are many nations who would love that record.
So why would you move something that has been so successful? Surely if anything you would move the administration?
Western Australians have been proud of the success that the Hockey High Performance unit has had here in Perth. They have been proud to share in that success. For that success to continue it is essential that the people of Western Australia come and show their support for the Hockeyroos and the Kookaburras and essentially the high performance unit at these Pro League games. If the crowds fail to turn up, in a few years time the fans may be waiting a long time to see top flight hockey in Perth again. For the public will have given strength to the argument that it is time to move to Victoria.
