Nigel Si­mon

Buoyed by their 4-3 win via a sud­den-death penal­ty shootout against USA af­ter a 1-1 draw for their first win of the Sec­ond Round of FIH World Hock­ey League qual­i­fiers on Sun­day, T&T se­nior hock­ey­men squad will be ea­ger to end the tour­na­ment on a high against host Brazil at the De­odoro Field Hock­ey Cen­tre, Rio de Janeiro, from 2.30 pm.

Cur­rent­ly, the 34th world ranked "Ca­lyp­so Stick­men" led by Dar­ren Cowie are fifth on the six-team ta­ble with two points from four match­es af­ter los­ing their oth­er match­es against Ar­genti­na (9-2), Chile (4-0) and South Africa (10-2).

How­ev­er, the Brazil­ians, ranked 33rd in the world, have not feared any bet­ter and are bot­tom of the stand­ings with­out a point af­ter suf­fer­ing de­feats against South Africa (9-0), Ar­genti­na (10-0), USA (5-0) and Chile (3-1).

T&T will al­so en­ter the match with good mem­o­ries of its last meet­ing with the "Sam­ba Stick­men", an 8-1 trumph at the 2007 Pan Amer­i­can Games at to­day's venue led by a beaver-trick from out-of-favour Wayne Leg­erton and Eng­land-based Kwand­wane Browne, who are both not with the team.

Pri­or to the T&T/Brazil clash, South Africa and Chile, joint sec­ond on the ta­ble with nine points each will lock horns from 8am with the valu­able sec­ond place fin­ish up for grabs while South Amer­i­can cham­pi­ons, Ar­genti­na on­ly needs a draw in its 10am meet­ing with USA.

At the end of the se­ries, the top two teams will ad­vance to the Third Round or the World League men's se­mi-fi­nals, which will take place in Rot­ter­dam, Hol­land from June 13 to 23, and in Jo­hor Bahru, Malaysia from June 29-Ju­ly 7.

To­day's fix­tures

To­mor­row

Chile vs South Africa, 8 am

Ar­genti­na vs USA, 10 am

Brazil vs T&T, 2.30 pm.

STAND­INGS

Teams P W WD LD L F A Pts

Ar­genti­na 4 4 0 0 0 29 4 12

South Africa 4 3 0 0 1 27 7 9

Chile 4 3 0 0 1 8 7 9

USA 4 1 0 1 2 6 7 3

T&T 4 0 1 0 3 5 24 2

Brazil 4 0 0 0 4 1 27 0