Hockey: Scottish men hope to prove world ranking wrong in Lille

IT IS the turn of Scotland's men to take the Champions Challenge tournament by storm in Lille this coming week and to show to the International Hockey Federation that their world ranking of 23rd is well below their potential.

Last week the women shocked the world stage by taking bronze, a feat that Eugene Connolly, Scotland manager, would love to emulate, or even better. The Scots start their campaign against Ireland today, play Russia tomorrow, and the pool competition finishes with France on Tuesday - and all these sides are higher up the international ladder.

Connolly has identified three targets for the Lille tournament. "We want to do as well as we can with international points at stake, secondly this event will act as good preparation for the European Nations Trophy in Ukraine next month, and finally it is the last chance for some of our players to conserve their place for the Europeans, given we are six players short in Lille."

If Scotland are to progress on the world stage, they must be able to beat teams like Ireland, France and Russia on a regular basis. Last time out in the Celtic Cup a couple of weeks ago, the Scots lost 2-1 to Ireland, albeit with the last hit of the game. "It will again be a close game, but if we can raise our intensity and adopt a more aggressive mental attitude, I feel we can win against Ireland," Connolly said.

"We beat France 6-4 in the Celtic Cup, although they had several regular players missing, and before that 5-4 last August, but we've not seen the Russians for two years, but as usual they will be strong and physical."

In a sense the pool matches can be somewhat irrelevant in this new tournament structure, the quarter-final ties are key, the winners progressing to the semi-finals while the losers contest for places five to eight. In the recent women's event the United States finished bottom of their pool, but won their quarter-final and eventually progressed to the final. Connolly recognised this fact and sees the game against either Czech Republic, USA, Austria or China, depending on final pool placings, as the key match.

But consistency of performance and results still eludes the Scotland squad as evident from the recent build-up games against top sides Spain, Germany and England. "We showed in these games that we can compete for periods of the match, and also score goals against the top five in the world, but we need to extend that to the full 70 minutes," said Connolly.

With six squad members unavailable, including Olympians Niall Stott and striker Stephen Dick who are likely to play for Great Britain in the elite Champions Trophy, Bowdon's Ross Stott is able to return from injury, goalkeeper Phil Carr retains his place, and there is a recall for Inverleith striker John Harris.

The Scots will hope that the likes of Kenny Bain, Alan Forsyth, Chris Grassick and Fergus Dunn must find that sharpness in the scoring circle.

But Scotland head coach Russell Garcia said: "Increasing the level of performance rather than results is the most important thing we have in mind."