Nickname Kookaburras Captain Mark Knowles Location Australia Confederation Oceania Hockey Federation | Manager Nathan Eglington FIH ranking 1 | |
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Assistant coach Rob Hammond and Anthony Potter |
Australia mens hockey team the kookaburras training session
The Australia men's national field hockey team (nicknamed the Kookaburras) is one of the nation's most successful top-level sporting teams. They are the only Australian team in any sport to receive medals at the last six Summer Olympic Games (1992–2012), and have placed in the top four in every Olympics since 1980. They also won the Hockey World Cup in 1986, 2010 and 2014.
Contents
- Australia mens hockey team the kookaburras training session
- History
- Participations
- Tournament History
- Current roster
- Notable players
- Family
- Recognition
- References
The Kookaburras' inability to win an Olympic gold medal despite their perennial competitiveness, led many in the Australian hockey community to speak of a "curse" afflicting the team, finally broken in 2004 with the win in Athens.
History
Australia's first men's team competed in an international match in 1922.
The first major competition won by the national team was the 1983 World Championships held in Karachi.
Participations
Australia's first men's team competed at the Olympics in field hockey at the 1956 Summer Olympics.
Australia did not medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics or the 1988 Summer Olympics. At the 1992 Summer Olympics, Australia earned a silver medal, losing gold to Germany. At the 1996 Summer Olympics, Australia finished third, earning a bronze medal.
The team won their first Olympic gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics. Barry Dancer coached the side.
Should Australia win the gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics they will become the first national team in field hockey history to hold all four international titles available to them simultaneously. They would hold titles in the 2012 Olympics, 2010 World Cup, 2011 Champions Trophy and their continental championship (2011 Oceania Cup) at the same time. Along with those four titles Australia also holds the Commonwealth Games title from the 2010 championships.
Tournament History
A red box around the year indicates tournaments played within Australia
Current roster
The following is the Australia roster in the men's field hockey tournament of the 2016 Summer Olympics. Aran Zalewski replaced Tristan White after he tore his posterior cruciate ligament a month before the games.‹See Tfd›
Head coach: Graham Reid
Reserves:
Notable players
Family
Barry Dancer/Brent Dancer and Ric Charlesworth/Jonathan Charlesworth are two pairs of father as coach and son as player while both were affiliated with the national team in those positions.