T&T’s men’s hockey5s team will come up against Nigeria Friday (January 26) from 8 am in their first of two warm-up matches ahead of the start of the inaugural 16-nation FIH Hockey 5s World Cup in Muscat, Oman, from Sunday to Wednesday (January 28 - 31).
Today's encounter will take place at the Hockey Oman Venue in Al Amarat, the same venue which hosted the just concluded FIH Hockey Paris Olympic qualifiers.
Speaking from Oman where the team arrived Thursday (January 25) morning after a 36-hour journey from T&T which included stops in London and Qatar, T&T coach said the team is excited to get going after their long journey.
A former national captain, Cowie said, "We finally touched down in Oman about 5 am today (yesterday) and we had our first training session which was not that demanding as the guys were feeling a bit jet lag as expected. So we just did a few shooting drills and got a feel of the new playing surface and the new tournament balls as well, and we will use the afternoon to fully rest up.
"Tomorrow (today), we play our first practice match against Nigeria, and then we may possibly have another on January 27 (Saturday) against Fiji before we have our first game on January 28 against Australia."
In Oman, the "Calypso Stickmen" led by veteran Akim Toussaint feature seven other players who were members of the team that qualified for the World Cup after a second-placed finish to the USA at the Hockey5s Pan American Cup in Kingston, Jamaica last June, will also meet Kenya and New Zealand in their four-team Pool C round-robin series.
The New Zealanders and Kenyan will clash in the other first-round match in Pool C on Sunday (January 28) before T&T faces Kenya in their second match on the opening day followed by a clash with New Zealand on Monday (January 29) to end pool play.
New Zealand and Australia meet in the other pool match on Sunday (January 28) while on the second and final day of round-robin play, the Aussies meet Kenya.
At the end of the round-robin stage, the top two teams in each of the four Pools will advance to the quarterfinals on Tuesday (January 30), from which the winners move on to the semifinals on the same day ahead of the final day of playoffs for the top spots on Wednesday (January 31).
The bottom two teams in each of the four pools will also be involved in playoffs for positions ninth to 16.
The local team which includes Jordan Vieira, Mickell Pierre, goalkeepers Andrey Rocke and Malcolm Baptiste, Shaquille Daniel, Jordan Reynos, and England-based Teague Marcano of Southgate Hockey Club who were all part of the team in Kingston qualified for Oman after losing to the USA 3-2 on penalties after a 2-2 draw in regulation time.
Despite ending as runners-up, Marcano (Teague) was the top scorer in the qualifiers with a tournament-high 17 goals and also captured the "Most Valuable Player" of the competition accolade while Toussaint and Pierre, with ten goals each ended as the joint second-highest scorers for the T&T, who netted a tournament team-high 48 goals.
Today's opponent Nigeria qualified as the second-placed finisher as well in their African Hockey5s World Cup Qualifier campaign ahead of traditional continental powerhouses Kenya and South Africa, beating both teams on the way, 4-2 and 5-4, respectively, and drawing against Zambia (4-4), with their solitary loss coming against Egypt, 6-8.
In the tournament finals, Nigeria again went under to Egypt 2-9 but a second-place finish was enough to earn them a spot in Oman with Peter John scoring 11 goals in five matches.
The other groups in Oman will see the Netherlands, Pakistan, Poland, and Nigeria in Pool A; India, Egypt, Switzerland, and Jamaica in Pool C and Oman, Malaysia, USA, and Fiji in Pool D.