Dar­ren Cowie, coach of the T&T’s ten-mem­ber men's hock­ey5s team the in­au­gur­al 16-na­tion FIH Hock­ey 5s World Cup in Mus­cat, Oman, from Jan­u­ary 28-31, says he has some con­cerns about his team's de­fen­sive play.

Cowie was speak­ing af­ter his team se­cured a 9-5 win over a lo­cal line-up in a prac­tice match at the Wood­brook Youth Fa­cil­i­ty, Port-of-Spain on Tues­day night, ahead of their fi­nal warm-up fix­ture tonight at the same venue ahead of their de­par­ture for Oman next Tues­day.

Com­ment­ing on the team's per­for­mance, Cowie a for­mer na­tion­al play­er and cap­tain said, "We were very good with our at­tack­ing per­for­mance, but de­fen­sive­ly there were some parts of the game where I felt we could have been a lit­tle more se­cure and safe with the ball."

He added, "Too many times we were caught out of po­si­tions and each time that hap­pened is when the op­po­si­tion scored, so we have to lim­it those mis­takes."

Look­ing ahead to his team's fi­nal train­ing ses­sion on home soil tonight against the same line-up, Cowie said his team will be work­ing on min­imis­ing their de­fen­sive er­rors.

"We are go­ing to see how best we can lim­it our de­fen­sive laps­es as well up put more fo­cus on our press­ing game and our abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate and tran­si­tion from of­fence to de­fence much quick­er.

In Oman, the T&T squad will be led by vet­er­an Akim Tou­s­saint while Cowie will have an­oth­er for­mer na­tion­al stand­out Dwain Quan Chan as his as­sis­tant coach.

In ad­di­tion to Tou­s­saint, the team in­cludes sev­en oth­er play­ers who were mem­bers of the team which qual­i­fied for the World Cup af­ter a sec­ond-placed fin­ish to the USA at the Hock­ey5s Pan Amer­i­can Cup in Kingston, Ja­maica last June, los­ing 3-2 on penal­ties af­ter a 2-2 draw in reg­u­la­tion time, in Jor­dan Vieira, Mick­ell Pierre, goal­keep­ers An­drey Rocke and Mal­colm Bap­tiste, Shaquille Daniel, Jor­dan Reynos and Eng­land-based Teague Mar­cano of South­gate Hock­ey Club.

Mar­cano was the top scor­er in the qual­i­fiers with a tour­na­ment-high 17 goals while Tou­s­saint and Pierre both fin­ished with ten goals as the joint sec­ond-high­est scor­ers for the T&T men, who net­ted a tour­na­ment team-high 48 goals. Mar­cano al­so copped the “Most Valu­able Play­er” ac­co­lade.

Forc­ing their way in­to the fi­nal ten are Teague’s old­er broth­er, Tariq Mar­cano, and Tarell Singh with Shawn Phillip and Nicholas, both part of the squad last June in Ja­maica, be­ing left out.

The oth­er mem­bers of the tech­ni­cal staff in­clude Kesh­en John­son (video­g­ra­ph­er), Sharon De Fre­itas (man­ag­er), Derek Ash­by (train­er), Karielle De Bique (phys­io­ther­a­pist) and Cindy Mar­tin-Faustin (head of del­e­ga­tion).

In Oman, this coun­try’s men’s Hock­ey5s team will flick off their par­tic­i­pa­tion against Aus­tralia on Jan­u­ary 28 while New Zealand and Kenya will clash in the oth­er first-round match in Pool C on the same day.

T&T will al­so face Kenya on the open­ing day of the men’s com­pe­ti­tion be­fore com­plet­ing round-robin pool play against New Zealand on Jan­u­ary 29.

New Zealand and Aus­tralia meet in the oth­er pool match on 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 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 Jan­u­ary 31.

The bot­tom two teams in each of the four pools will al­so be in­volved in play­offs for po­si­tions ninth to 16.

The Aussies qual­i­fied for the tour­na­ment as win­ners of the Ocea­nia Cup with a 6-4 de­feat of ri­vals fel­low qual­i­fiers New Zealand in the fi­nal.

This af­ter Aus­tralia crushed Solomon Is­lands 10-0 in their semi­fi­nal, and New Zealand swept past Fi­ji 6-2.

Ear­li­er in the round-robin phase of the sev­en-na­tion qual­i­fiers the Aussies clob­bered Solomon Is­lands 11-2; Fi­ji 10-3; Van­u­atu 16-2; Ton­ga 11-0; Papua New Guinea 7-2 and New Zealand 4-3

New Zealand had round-robin wins against Papua New Guinea 9-2, Van­u­atu 9-2, Ton­ga 12-0, and Solomon Is­lands 7-0, and drew with Fi­ji 5-5 in their oth­er match­es.

Kenya qual­i­fied as the third-placed team in the Africa Hock­ey5s World Cup qual­i­fiers with a 5-2 de­feat of Zam­bia in their bronze medal match to avenge an open­ing day 5-0 round-robin loss.

The Kenyans were al­so beat­en 2-4 by Nige­ria and 6-1 by host Egypt while they beat round-robin cel­lar-placed fin­ish­ers South Africa 3-2 for their lone league win ahead of the play­offs in which Egypt thrashed Nige­ria 9-2 for the gold medals.

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.

T&T team: Mal­colm Bap­tiste (goal­keep­er), Jor­dan Vieira, Akim Tou­s­saint (cap­tain), Tariq Mar­cano, Teague Mar­cano, Tarell Singh, Mick­ell Pierre, Shaquille Daniel, Jor­dan Reynos, An­drey Rocke (goal­keep­er).

Tech­ni­cal staff: Dar­ren Cowie (coach), Kesh­en John­son (video­g­ra­ph­er), Sharon De Fre­itas (man­ag­er), Dwain Quan Chan (as­sis­tant coach), Derek Ash­by (train­er), Karielle De Bique (phys­io­ther­a­pist), Cindy Mar­tin-Faustin (head of del­e­ga­tion).