Argentine threat looms large

17/10/2001

By Jugjet Singh in Hobart

WATCH out for Argentina in the 2002 World Cup in Kuala Lumpur.
Argentina? Yes, the South Americans are the latest revelation in the
hockey world and if their juniors are to be used as a yardstick, the
Argies are going to take Kuala Lumpur by storm in February next year.
There are 16 juniors in Hobart in the Junior World Cup and about seven
of them are likely to make the senior squad. But Argentine coach Alejandro
Verga reckons only Rodrigo Vila, their skipper, will make the grade in
2002.
His reason: "There are 30 players in the senior squad training for the
Kuala Lumpur World Cup, and all of them are better than what we have in
Hobart for the junior tournament."
Argentina are on everybody's lips in Hobart and when they play Australia
today in the second round, nobody will be surprised if they hammer the
hosts and defending champions out of the tournament.
Vila, goalkeeper Joaquin Berthold, Juan Gilardi, Marcelo del Negro,
Matias Masot, Aeljandro Pasquali. The list goes on and on until every
player in the team is named, have talent, superb stick work and attack as
a team all the time, especially if they are a goal down as Holland found
out yesterday.
So how did Argentina, who normally shy off in the quarterfinals or the
semis in the past 10 years, assemble such a strong senior and junior side?
Verga, an expert one-line comedian off the field, feels that their
development programmes have finally started to show results.
Hockey is slowly picking up in the Americas and they are only riding on
the early waves, Verga cautioned: "one day we will become a tidal wave and
flood all the hockey pitches in the world."
There are about 300 active hockey players who are fighting to make the
grade in Argentina and the locals have started supporting them in a big
way, but compared to soccer, the support is like a drop of water in an
ocean.
So watch out for the Argies when they arrive in Kuala Lumpur in
February, if nothing else, the South Americans will be a joy to watch
because they have combined the Indian flair, German imagination, and South
Korean fighting spirit into their game.
And if they win big, in Verga's words: "Everything will start looking
nice, the mountains, the weather and even the hotel will suddenly look
like the ones back home."
On another note, while the rest of the world are glued to the bombings
in Afghanistan and the anthrax scare in the United States, in Tasmania the
headlines screamed of a fox being shot in the Symmons plains in north
Tasmania.
And the noise is not coming from animal lovers for cruelty on the fox
but because they now have proof for the first time of the "devastating"
pest's existence in the state.
After extensive laboratory testing, the stomach contents of the dead fox
included a dusky wood swallow, which migrates to Tasmania from interstate
in summer, a long tailed rat known as the Tasmanian mouse, and berries.
(END)