Charlesworth to coach Australian men’s team

SYDNEY: Australian field hockey great Ric Charlesworth has been appointed to coach the national men’s team through to the 2012 London Olympics, Hockey Australia said on Tuesday.

It is a job that Charlesworth, 55, has coveted for 20 years since he retired after his fourth Olympics at Seoul in 1988.

Charlesworth failed to win a gold medal as a player in that time and is seeking to win Olympic gold as coach of the Australian men’s Kookaburras team.

Retiring national coach Barry Dancer ended Australia’s frustrating quest when the men’s team captured the gold at the 2004 Athens Games, but his decision to quit after this year’s Beijing Olympics created the opening for Charlesworth.

In another announcement on Tuesday, Frank Murray has retained his position as coach of the Hockeyroos women’s team after taking on the role in 2004.

In Charlesworth’s eight-year reign with the women’s team, his only previous stint as a national coach, the Hockeyroos rarely lost a tournament and won two World Cups, three Champions Trophies and two Olympic gold medals in Atlanta and Sydney.

Charlesworth was recently a technical adviser to the Indian Hockey Federation but quit four months after being formally given the job in March to revive Indian hockey after the eight-time Olympic champions failed to qualify for the Beijing Games for the first time.

Charlesworth said he had been interested in the Australian job for several years.

“I was asked if I wanted to do the job in 2000, but I needed a break from coaching,” he said on Tuesday.

“I was thinking that in 2004 I would go back but the job wasn’t available then.

“I’ve been watching the team’s performance in recent times but I was doing other things and the opportunity wasn’t there.”

Charlesworth said his focus would be on building a new team following the many retirements which have taken place since Beijing, where the Australians were upset by Spain in the semi-finals and finished with a bronze medal.

“The team changes all the time and the team which played in Beijing will never play together again,” he said.

“The job really is about building a new team and only a handful of the players playing now will be under 30 at the next Olympics.

“I think in terms of the programme, there were a lot of good things that were happening. So you want to keep those things going and then you want to add and embellish those areas that need improvement.”