Hockey: Scotland gets friendly with the best to raise game

Eugene Connolly, Scotland's manager, sees taking on the world's top sides as the best preparation for the forthcoming Champions Challenge in France and the European Nations Trophy in Ukraine in the next couple of months. Consequently, Germany, Spain and England - all in the world's top five - have been invited to a four nations friendly tournament at Inverclyde this weekend.

"Germany, Spain and England are among the world's elite and it will give us a measure of what we have to do to aspire to that level," said Connolly. "And we can do it, it's not so long ago we beat England 2-1 and then again 4-2 in successive European Championships in Barcelona and Leipzig. This is the best possible preparation as our opponents in both the Champions Challenge and European Nations are not in the same league as Germany, Spain or England, and these are the sides we will have to play if we get promotion this summer."

Connolly also claimed that playing top sides is good for the players' discipline. "You can't do sloppy things against players of this calibre and expect to get away with it." The Scots have already found this out to their cost, they lost 6-0 and 4-0 to Spain in January, then 5-0 and 3-1 to an England side minus their Great Britain players a few weeks ago.

Connolly added: "We played very well against Canada back in April, but we lost the series 2-1. All round we're simply not consistent enough yet."

Head coach Russell Garcia has picked a squad of 21 players for this weekend's three matches, which will form the basis of the final 18 representing Scotland in this summer's competitive tournaments. The only absentee is former Inverleith striker Stephen Dick who will turn out for his new club Reading against Spanish outfit Club de Campo in the semi-final of the EuroLeague.

The squad has been bolstered by the return of some key players, East Grinstead's Niall Stott comes back from Great Britain duty at the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia, while strikers Kenny Bain and Fergus Dunn are released by Dutch side HDM and Barcelona respectively, and their addition gives Garcia more options up front. There are also places for Durham's Daniel Coultas after scoring three penalty corner goals in the series against Canada and Glynhill Kelburne striker Alan Forsyth who notched four against the Canadian under 21 side at Peffermill.

Today at 5pm, Garcia's charges take on Spain.

lScotland's representatives in the European Challenge in Bra in Italy are Glasgow's Milne Craig Western, who opened their quest for promotion with a disappointing 2-1 defeat against Lithuania's Gintra Strekte Universitas last night.