Danny Kerry is the quiet, thoughtful and meticulous Head Coach to England and Great Britain men’s team. Which is why there is no doubt that, while his team have been working hard on their fitness during lock down, Kerry will have been plotting and planning his team’s journey through the pathway that encompasses the FIH Hockey Pro League, EuroHockey Champions and, ultimately, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, to be held next year.
Great Britain didn’t get off to the best of starts in the opening matches of the second FIH Hockey Pro League season. They currently sit at the bottom of the league table, with just one win to their name. This situation will not bother Kerry one jot. He knows, from prior experience with the Great Britain women’s team, that to win, his players have to experience loss and build resilience as a result.
That said, the Great Britain coach will be looking for his players to take all they know into the next set of FIH Hockey Pro League matches. Key to the centralised programme that England Hockey runs, is the search for growth, development and learning. The past few months may not have seen much international hockey action, but the players have been back in training and Kerry will be looking for his team to show just how much they have developed as a squad in that time.
The next series of matches can be seen as a fresh start for the team after the early four matches. What are the key changes we can expect to see from Great Britain in the next round of fixtures?
Danny Kerry: There are some fantastic matches coming up for the Great Britain lads in the next few weeks. It has obviously been an awfully long time since we last played. We were travelling home from our last matches against New Zealand in Auckland last January. The good news is that the lads have used the break really well. They have looked after themselves, they have recharged their batteries and come back in good physical shape. We have been fortunate enough to return to training in the last few months and, in that training, the lads have worked really, really hard. So, we are in good spirits and looking forward to the games. We have definitely been working on aspects of our play in a really good and focused fashion. So, all good so far.
The break has given many players a chance to recover from injury and re-set mentally. While no-one would ever wish a situation such as this pandemic to happen, is there a value that has perhaps not been appreciated before in having an enforced period away from the game?
Danny Kerry: The enforced break has been challenging on some levels and on other levels it has helped us get off the hamster wheel that performance sport can be. You don’t often get that opportunity. Some of the lads have also faced some challenging times around decisions around their continuation in the sport. Some have definitely been planning to retire post the summer Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games. They were thinking about starting families, getting married, starting new careers so that has created some challenging decisions for those lads. They have had some excellent support from our staff and some excellent conversations and I think we are now at the other side of that.
Where do you expect the main dangers to come from when you face the Netherlands?
Danny Kerry: With the Netherlands and then Belgium, we face two of the leading teams in the world. They contested the World Cup final in 2018, so we are looking forward to the quality that those teams bring.
In regard to the Netherlands, you have major threats at penalty corners with the likes of Mink van der Weerden, Jip Janssen and now, I think, I have just been seeing Terence Peeters score a few good goals in the Hoofdklasse. And he has been in and around the Dutch squad as well. So they have multiple options at corners. They have traditionally been strong in the counter attack with the likes of Billy Bakker and [Jeroen] Hertzberger setting up good counter attack opportunities. They have excellent goal scoring prowess in the likes of Mirco Pruijser, so they are a strong side with some experienced individuals in it. They have good attacking invention, so we will have to be on our A game and we look forward to that challenge.
Of course two wins is the ultimate but what outcomes, at this stage of the season, would you be satisfied with?
Danny Kerry: I’m not really worried too much about the outcome. We always play hard and we always play to win but, for me, the success will be around putting our game out there and playing the way we want to play, particularly in the areas we are looking to change and grow. As all the teams are starting in different places, it is a bit like a massive athletics race unfolding with everyone at different points, at the moment, in that race but all aiming for the same end point, this year and into Tokyo 2021. It is difficult to call in terms of outcomes, the main thing is that we want to go hard at our game and do what we can with our game. We are really looking forward to it.
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