NSW indoor star joins national players in AIS Indoor tour

NSW and Australian indoor representative David Spence has had a busy and cold indoor hockey season, currently on tour in Europe.

News released: 08/01/2010

NSW and Australian indoor representative David Spence has had a busy and cold indoor hockey season, currently on tour in Europe.

In December, a squad of AIS Men travelled to Cologne in Germany for two weeks to play seven indoor hockey matches against German Club sides. The group was selected from trials in Perth in late October and was unique in its formation as the first indoor touring squad to comprise of national indoor and field squad members.

Athletes selected included lone NSW representative David Spence along with Jason Black, George Watts, Adam Baxter and Adam McLelland from the national indoor squad; Junior World Cup players Matt Gohdes, Malcolm Kemp, Leon Hayward, Josh Pollard as well as Trent Mitton and Tim Deavin from the National Development Squad and Kookaburras team members David Guest, Chris Ciriello and Matthew Swann who travelled directly from Melbourne only two days after winning Gold at the Champions Trophy.

With 9 of the 14 players having very limited experience with indoor hockey, Paul Lissek (German Olympic Coach 1992 and now a consultant to the Australian Men's High Performance Program) was set to lead the team for the tour to Germany as part of Ric Charlesworth's vision to equip all national field players with the indoor hockey skill set.

"I'm extremely pleased to see the outdoor and indoor programs work together in what will ultimately be the best outcome for players of both forms of the game... I see skills and tactics from this form of the game that are a very valuable adjunct to the repertoire of the modern field players." Charlesworth said in September 2009.

The tour matches against German club sides proved to be excellent tests of the abilities of the Australian team which showed the improvement with every game. The AIS team won the first four matches 6-5, 8-7, 6-3 and 13-2 before the biggest challenge of the tour with a match against current German Champions and 6 times European Champions Red-White Cologne.

The Red-White team included Tibor Weissenborn who played over 300 matches for Germany and won Olympic and World Cup Gold medals. The match was the highlight of the tour with the Australian team jumping out to a 4-2 lead only for Red-White to score the next four goals to lead 6-4 at half time. With the Australians drawing level after half time, Red-White scored another 4 unanswered goals to lead 10-6 with 12 minutes remaining. The final minutes were full of action with the Australians adding 5 goals to Red-White's 2, with the final score 11-12 after the Aussies missed a couple of chances in the final seconds.

The last two games of the tour were against lower ranked clubs with a relatively easy 16-5 win in Bonn followed up with an excellent final game where the team showcased its skill and tactical development in overcoming a determined and well organised MSC Cologne side 12-3 after only leading 3-2 at half time.

Whilst the remainder of the group returned to Australia, NSW's David Spence remained in Europe to meet up with the Australian Indoor Team tour commencing in Moscow just after Christmas. Stay tuned for an update from the Australian men's indoor hockey team which features five NSW athletes next week.

Check out the goal highlights from the AIS Germany tour in videos posted here.

Tour reports courtesy James Young - Video Analyst and Hockey WA