The ex­pe­ri­enced Dwain Quan Chan has been forced to with­draw from the T&T se­nior men’s in­door hock­ey squad which leaves on Tues­day for the FIH In­door Hock­ey World Cup in Porec, Croa­t­ia. The tour­na­ment flicks off on Feb­ru­ary 3 and con­cludes on Feb­ru­ary 9.

This was con­firmed by team coach Raphael Govia on Fri­day morn­ing with Quan Chan's place in the fi­nal 14-man team be­ing tak­en by one of the three re­serves, Arielle Bowen.

The world's 17th-ranked "Ca­lyp­so Stick­men" will com­pete in Group C against world third-ranked Bel­gium, fourth-ranked Aus­tralia, and 14th-ranked Namib­ia.

Reached for com­ment, Govia said Quan Chan who was al­so a late with­draw­al from the team for the 2018 World Cup had to be with­drawn due to fam­i­ly rea­sons.

Ac­cord­ing to Govia while he sup­ports the de­ci­sion by Quan Chan it al­so caus­es a headache for the T&T team de­fen­sive­ly.

He said, "We were al­ready dis­ap­point­ed that we would not have the op­por­tu­ni­ty of a pre-tour warm-up where our play­ers could have re­al­ly test­ed their tac­ti­cal game plans against some good qual­i­ty op­po­si­tion and al­so get used to the cold cli­mate be­fore our first of­fi­cial warm-up match ver­sus South Africans on Feb­ru­ary 31, but now we have the added headache of fill­ing Quan Chan's key spot.

He added, "We had al­ready worked on cer­tain com­bi­na­tions in­volv­ing Quan Chan (Dwain) and Jor­dan Reynos on the left side of the de­fence and it was a tow­er of strength mov­ing in to com­pe­ti­tion.

"But now, with Quan Chan step­ping out we now have Bowen (Arielle) com­ing in­to the team and we will have to use the few ses­sions we have to get it right."

De­spite the late with­draw­al, Govia not­ed that in gen­er­al prepa­ra­tions for the team have been good.

"We have had 50-plus train­ing ses­sions at the Wood­brook Youth Fa­cil­i­ty and we are ready for our de­par­ture on Tues­day.

"They guys are look­ing sharp here in our fi­nal warm-up match (yes­ter­day) against a lo­cal Pres­i­dent XI we can see that the play­ers are play­ing a much bet­ter brand of hock­ey and look­ing sharp­er than they did in Thurs­day's prac­tice ses­sion."

He added, "On Thurs­day, they were a bit shaky but to­day (yes­ter­day) they set­tled very ear­ly and played much bet­ter hock­ey."

For­mer cap­tain of the team Akim Tou­s­saint, the as­sis­tant coach, who will be go­ing to his third In­door World Cup, but first time as a mem­ber of the tech­ni­cal staff said he has seen a lot of growth in the team since they qual­i­fied as run­ners-up to Ar­genti­na at the In­door Pan Amer­i­can Cup last March in Cana­da.

"There are a num­ber of play­ers in the team who have the ex­pe­ri­ence of play­ing in pre­vi­ous World Cups and the Pan Amer­i­can In­door Cups as well and they are all mak­ing that pro­gres­sion to­wards achiev­ing our goal in Croa­t­ia.

De­spite mov­ing in­to a new role with the team. Tou­s­saint said he was ex­cit­ed to still be part of the group.

"I'm now in a coach­ing role with the team, so now it's a chance for me to ex­tend my lega­cy and help the guys by us­ing the ex­per­tise of the games from on the side­lines in my new role," he added.

In Croa­t­ia, the 17th-ranked team in the world, T&T, first plays Aus­tralia on Feb­ru­ary 3 ahead of their re­main­ing match­es ver­sus Namib­ia on Feb­ru­ary 5 and Bel­gium on Feb­ru­ary 6.

Pool A will fea­ture world top-ranked Aus­tria, No 22 Croa­t­ia, No 9 Poland, and No 8 South Africa, while No 12 Ar­genti­na, No 5 Ger­many, No 2 Iran, and No 22 Malaysia are in Pool B.

At the end of the three round-robin pool match­es, the top eight ranked teams will con­test the quar­ter­fi­nals ahead of the semi­fi­nals, fi­nal, and oth­er play­off spots.

Dar­ren Cowie will lead the T&T team in Croa­t­ia with Govia in charge for a sec­ond World Cup af­ter his de­but at the pres­ti­gious event in 2018 in Berlin, Ger­many.

The T&T squad in­cludes the trio of Sau­di Ara­bia-based Solomon Ec­cles, goal­keep­er Ron Alexan­der and Mick­ell Pierre, all of whom were part of T&T teams at their pre­vi­ous two FIH In­door World Cups, first in 2007 in Vi­en­na, Aus­tria, and 11 years lat­er in Ger­many.

The oth­er play­ers who were part of the team six years ago and have been in­clud­ed for next month’s tour­na­ment by Govia are Jor­dan Vieira, Shaquille Daniel, and Reynos while Tou­s­saint, who was part of the first two World Cup teams, re­tired last year.

The rest of the team fea­tures Eng­land-based stand­out Teague Mar­cano, who played at the 2007 edi­tion, and debu­tants Kar­los Stephens (goal­keep­er), Lyn­del By­er, Tarell Singh, Dy­lan Fran­cis, Bowen and Nicholas Siu Butt.

Last March in Cal­gary, Cana­da, the ‘Ca­lyp­so Stick­men, led by Tou­s­saint, qual­i­fied for their third FIH In­door Hock­ey World Cup de­spite a 5-2 loss to Ar­genti­na in the gold medal con­test of the five-team tour­na­ment.

T&T, the 2017 Pan Amer­i­can Cup In­door cham­pi­ons, had ear­li­er in the tour­na­ment de­feat­ed Guyana 5-3 and host Cana­da 7-3 but went un­der to the USA 4-3 and Ar­genti­na (12-2) in pool play be­fore they turned the tide on the Amer­i­cans in the semi­fi­nals, 5-4, to earn their tick­et to Croa­t­ia, with Ar­genti­na blast­ing Guyana 10-0 in the oth­er semi­fi­nal.

FIH In­door Hock­ey World Cup Groups:

Pool A: No 1 Aus­tria, No 22 Croa­t­ia, No 9 Poland, No 8 South Africa

Pool B: No 12 Ar­genti­na, No 5 Ger­many, No 2 Iran, No 22 Malaysia

Pool C:No 4 Aus­tralia, No 3 Bel­gium, No 14 Namib­ia, No 17 T&T

TEAM

Ron Alexan­der (goal­keep­er), Kar­los Stephens (goal­keep­er), Arielle Bowen , Solomon Ec­cles, Shaquille Daniel, Lyn­del By­er, Jor­dan Reynos, Jor­dan Vieira, Tarell Singh, Dar­ren Cowie (cap­tain), Mikel Pierre, Teague Mar­cano, Dy­lan Fran­cis, Nicholas Siu Butt.

Re­serves: Mal­colm Bap­tiste, Do­minic Young.

Tech­ni­cal staff: Raphael Govia (coach), Akim Tou­s­saint (as­sis­tant coach), Kesh­en John­son (man­ag­er), Ak­il Howard (train­er/phys­io­ther­a­pist).