17 Mar 2010

The Australian Kookaburra’s men’s hockey team has won the 2010 Hero Honda FIH World Cup defeating arch rival Germany 2–1 with a stunning victory in New Delhi on 13 March.

It’s Australia’s second World Cup victory since winning the title in London in 1986 over 24 years ago. Australia was playing its third consecutive World Cup final against Germany — winners of the title in 2002 and 2006.

It was a superb performance by Australia winning six consecutive games on its way to the World Cup victory, after losing their opening match against England.

18 current Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) athletes played in the Australian Kookaburras squad, which included Jamie Dwyer, Liam De Young, Simon Orchard, Glenn Turner, Robert Hammond, Matthew Butturini, Mark Knowles, Eddie Ockenden, Luke Doerner, Grant Schubert, Matthew Swann, Nathan Burgers, George Bazeley, Kieran Govers, Kiel Brown, Graeme Begbie, Fergus Kavanagh and Desmond Abbott.

Luke Doerner became the leading scorer for the World Cup with eight goals.

Head coach of the Australian Kookaburras and AIS Men's Hockey program Ric Charlesworth has achieved great World Cup success. He was a member of the Australian Kookaburras team that claimed a World Cup title in 1986 and as a coach in 2010. 

The AIS works in partnership with Hockey Australia in supporting the training and development of talented Australian male and female athletes and providing access to specialist coaching and sports science expertise, state-of-the-art training facilities.

AIS Hockey also provides a development pathway for talented players to gain valuable experience in high performance competition and to earn selection in the Australian national squad.