Scotland’s senior women’s squad face a challenge game from the world’s top team, The Netherlands, in Germany on Thursday as the continue their build-up for the EuroHockey Championships in Germany.
Several of his squad are in the Great Britain set-up and have played the Dutch, but others have not, but Scotland head coach, Chris Duncan looks forward to the test.
The match is in Monchengladbach, the venue for the Euro championships which begin for the Tartan Hearts, ranked No 15 in the world, on Sunday when they square-up to England, ranked No 8, in their opener at 9.15am.
Then, just over 24-hours later, Scotland face Spain (12.30), ranked No 7 in the world, a match which has a particular twist as the Scots edged Spain 2-1 two years ago in the last competition also held in Monchengladbach.
Their final pool game is on Wednesday, August 13 against Belgium (11.15), a country rated no 3 in the world, before the cross-over ties which decide the finishing positions in the tournament.
Duncan, now based in West Lothian, said that his squad as prepared well for the competition in which several players – Sarah Jamieson, Jen Eadie, Fiona Burnet and Millie Steiger – will reach significant milestones in their careers.
The party touched down in Dusseldorf on Wednesday night and head coach Duncan said his players were, generally, used to preparing for big tournaments like this one.
He added: “We are used to the tournament scenario, and, from a staff perspective, we are pretty diligent in our preparation, we have done our homework on all three sides we are going to play, but all our narrative is focused on game No 1 in the tournament and getting off to a good start.
“We have done some work during the last few weeks on the other teams, apart from England, but, in the next few days it is all about what we can do in game No 1 and what we can do against England.”
He added: “We are also used to the different weather in Europe. We have processes we have here at home to make sure that we land on the ground, but there is no way of replicating European summer.
“We would, I presume, all wish that a Scottish summer would be a bit warmer, but we have done diligent work in saunas and with clothing and with heat preparation in the last few weeks to ensure we are as ready as we can be.”
Duncan has been keeping a close eye on the thermometer and it has been showing lower temperatures than his players have experienced in the past in tournaments in Europe and one which they experienced in Chile in the Nations Cup a few months ago.
The venue is also not new to most of the current Scotland squad, and that is a bonus according to the coach who said: “That brings with it a lot of calmness in terms of planning.
“We know what we are going to, we know what the surroundings are and we know what not to expect and what to expect. That has really helped us in our planning phase, in terms of knowing where we are staying and where we can eat, so we feel pretty settled.
“The other thing that we know is that the tournament is going to be really hard, we are playing against some of the world’s top teams. It will be difficult, but the reason we train is to test ourselves against the best.”
With that in mind, Duncan said there was no better way of preparing for this tournament than to be playing the best team in the world in a friendly game before a hard training session on Friday and then a light session on Saturday.
He added: “Everybody has done the work off the pitch and everyone has a shared understanding of what they want to achieve when they walk out onto the pitch and also what our plans are from a tactical perspective, the way that we want to play the game.
“Overall, every time we go on the pitch we want to show the world what we are capable of and show the developments we have made. We also want to try and imprint our style against the opposition and the next few days are an opportunity to sharpen the squad ahead of Sunday morning.”
MILESTONE AHEAD: Fiona Burnet (left) about to reach a significant milestone for Scotland. Picture Nigel Duncan
