Glen "Fi­do" Fran­cis, coach of the T&T se­nior women’s hock­ey5s team says this coun­try's chances of fin­ish­ing among the top three teams at the in­au­gur­al Hock­ey5s Pan Amer­i­can Cup Tour­na­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Mona Cam­pus Turf in Kingston, Ja­maica from June 4-11, are very good.

In the nine-team women’s com­pe­ti­tion, which serves as the con­ti­nen­tal qual­i­fi­er for the FIH Hock­ey5s (five-a-side) 16-team World Cup set to be played in Jan­u­ary 2024 in Mus­cat, Oman, the 'Ca­lyp­so Stick­women' will con­test Pool B with host Ja­maica, and South Amer­i­can duo, Brazil, and Uruguay while Paraguay, reign­ing Cen­tral Amer­i­can cham­pi­ons Cos­ta Ri­ca, Pana­ma, Guatemala, and the USA are in Pool A.

The T&T women led by co-cap­tains, Sha­nia De Fre­itas and Krizia Layne-Alexan­der, will open their cam­paign in the 20-minute per match qual­i­fiers against the Ja­maicans on June 4 from 6 pm be­fore fac­ing Uruguay on June 5 (3.20 pm), and Brazil on June 6 from 4.40 pm.

At the end of the round-robin se­ries in both men’s and women’s com­pe­ti­tions, the teams will con­test cross-over quar­ter­fi­nals with the win­ners of each pool meet­ing the fourth-placed team in the oth­er while the sec­ond and third-placed teams clash as well to de­ter­mine the semi­fi­nal­ists.

From the semi­fi­nals, the two win­ners will qual­i­fy for the fi­nal as well as earn tick­ets to Oman, along with the win­ners of the third-placed play­offs.

The women's team to qual­i­fy for Oman so far are the African trio of Namib­ia, South Africa and Zam­bia while Eu­rope, Ocea­nia, Asia, and Eu­rope are still to de­ter­mine their three qual­i­fiers each as well.

Speak­ing ahead of a train­ing ses­sion at the St James Po­lice Bar­racks Ground, Hock­ey Fa­cil­i­ty, Fran­cis, a for­mer na­tion­al goal­keep­er, and cap­tain, as well as coach of both men's and women's Out­door teams said, "Based on the groups and the for­mat of the tour­na­ment I be­lieve our chances of qual­i­fi­ca­tion are very good.

"We are def­i­nite­ly look­ing at a top-three fin­ish to get to Oman and the girls are high­ly mo­ti­vat­ed to do well, which is al­so im­por­tant."

In terms of his team's prepa­ra­tion to date, Fran­cis stat­ed that based on the fa­cil­i­ties and time avail­able they have done the best pos­si­ble prepa­ra­tion that they can.

He said, "We have played at least 50 prac­tice match­es and the girls are all ex­cit­ed to com­pete in this new for­mat with the chance to qual­i­fy for a World Cup.

"The group is a tricky one in that Ja­maica will be play­ing at home and will no doubt feed off the en­er­gy of the home sup­port, while Brazil is ex­pect­ed to be tough as well along with Uruguay, which is one of the top teams in South Amer­i­ca, so we will not be tak­ing any team for grant­ed."

In back­ing the com­po­si­tion of his team, Fran­cis said, "I think the make-up of the team is a very sol­id one with a lot of girls who have ex­pe­ri­enced this for­mat and have the skill set to pro­duce in the like of Amie Olton, Saman­tha Olton, Chelsea Dey, Sa­van­nah De Fre­itas, Sha­nia De Fre­itas (co-cap­tain), Zene Hen­ry, and Krizia Layne-Alexan­der (co-cap­tain) and the USA-based Fe­li­cia King-Ash­by who will sure­ly add some qual­i­ty in at­tack as well."

How­ev­er, one con­cern for Fran­cis was the fit­ness lev­el as he stat­ed it was not ex­act­ly at 100 per­cent, nor where he want­ed it to be for these types of tour­na­ments, but with the run­ning changes to be made dur­ing the game, it will al­low him to make tac­ti­cal ad­just­ments when need­ed.

T&T Women's Team

Amie Olton, Saman­tha Olton, Ar­resia Sandy (goal­keep­er), Chelsea Dey, Fe­li­cia King-Ash­by, Sa­van­nah De Fre­itas, Sha­nia De Fre­itas (co-cap­tain), Talia Seale (goal­keep­er), Zene Hen­ry, Krizia Layne-Alexan­der (co-cap­tain)

Tech­ni­cal staff: Glen Fran­cis (coach), Blair Wynne (as­sis­tant coach), Jon Es­pos­i­to (as­sis­tant coach), Miguel King (IT Tech­ni­cian/video­g­ra­ph­er), Ke­moy Clarke (man­ag­er), Cindy Mar­tin-Faustin (Team Ad­min­is­tra­tor).