Chris Duncan, Scotland’s women’s hockey head coach, hopes that a large crowd comes to support the Tartan Hearts as they push-back on a tough schedule of warm-up games leading to their debut in the World Cup in August.
This weekend, the squad face a double-header against Malaysia and world ranking points are at stake, so Duncan, does not want any slip-ups against the touring team who are ranked No 21 in the world. Scotland are No 14.
He has no real injury concerns ahead of the matches at The University of Edinburgh Playing Fields at Peffermill at 4pm on Saturday and 2pm on Sunday. Tickets are available.
The coach admitted that a couple in his squad have niggles, not uncommon at this time of the year.
Duncan’s squad come into the games following recent wins over a highly-competitive and developing India under-21 side at the same venue and Malaysia will present a different challenge to the one the Tartan Hearts will face in Pool B at Wavre, Belgium in the world event.
They open against Germany (ranked No 5 in the world) on Saturday, August 15 (10.30) at the Belfius Hockey Arena and also square-up to USA (No 11) on Monday, August 17 (10.00) and world-rated, No 2, Argentina on Wednesday, August 19 (10.00) at the same venue.
Duncan said: “For us, at this stage, and we are around 30 days out from the World Cup, we are focusing on ourselves, and we have selected relatively earlier than we would perhaps in other tournament settings to allow us to spend time gelling as a squad and working as a squad and to make sure that our combinations are as sharp as possible.
“However, this will be a good test because it is a different style of hockey than we are used to, and against a team we are not used to playing.
“We played India under-21 two weeks ago as well, and they (Malaysia) will play direct and carry the ball, that will put pressure on our one-to-one defending.
“They will hit through us and put pressure on our willingness to intercept and our readiness, and these are things we will need to be on top of when we play Germany in the first game of the World Cup and USA in the second.”
He fully expects Malaysia to be a step-up from the Indian under-21 side, and he added: “It is good for us to be the aggressor in these games and to be the team to set the tempo. which we are trying to get better at, but and time you a playing wish international world ranking points on the table you see a different side of your team, so we are looking for a step-up.
“Winning is a habit and it was good to win twice against India under-21, but our objective is to keep developing our performance and to get to where we want to be on August 15.”
Duncan underlined the importance of fan support for his side and he said: “We have genuine role models in our national team and so having them playing here, in front of a home crowd, is so important for them and for us.
“The next few weeks brings a lot of games, nine of them to be precise. We go from playing Malaysia to three times against England, twice against Belgium and twice against South Africa, which is good as we will have to find ways of impacting our own style.
“We are excited by this block and we are not really thinking too much about the World Cup just now because we have so many games on the horizon.”
PRESSURE: Scotland women home in on the India-under 21 goal during the recent international at Peffermill. Picture Nigel Duncan
