Louis Mendonca: Our focus now is PanAm Games 2015
Canadian women have finished fifth in the Delhi Olympic Qualifier and the coach Louis Mendonca is not unduly perturbed by the not so great performance of his girls.
“Yes, I think we should have been at least in the bronze medal match. We prepared and aimed for that, as we feel we have to walk many miles before we match South Africa or India”. They are definitely good teams, definitely better than us”, he said winding off the program here.
He elaborated two reasons for below bar performance.
“At least 8 girls from this squad are under 18, one girl is even 16 years. They have benefited a lot in their preparation for the next year’s Junior World Cup”.
Canadian women team was quite in contrast to their male counterparts. Their men’s team have as many as six players above the age of 32 or 35, oldest being at 38.
Dwelling on the positives, Mendonca said, “They have got good exposure in the tournament, as we don’t get to play quite often against strong teams”.
“This perhaps I relate to good show of Ukraine, who get much of exposure in the European circuit. We in Canada just play against our boys and occasionally against State and other teams”.
But still I feel we haven’t played to our potential against Ukraine, but for that we could have been in the medal match”, he said.
Canada today defeated Poland 3-0 in the first of the three matches billed for the last day of the Delhi Olympic Qualifier.