Kavanagh empowered by edict to cut loose

A few quiet words from the Hockeyroos coaching staff to Alana Kavanagh before she made her senior international debut against India last May not only quelled the butterflies that were rioting in her stomach, but they empowered the Sydneysider to play her own game.

The 20 year old is tapping into the sentiment behind that advice as she prepares to represent the NSW Pride in the team’s opening match of their Hockey One League season against Brisbane Blaze.

“Playing for Australia has been my dream since I started playing hockey,” said Kavanagh, a proud New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS) scholarship holder. “It was an amazing experience, and while mine was very much a last minute call up, I took the opportunity and embraced every moment.

“What I can vividly remember is the meeting before the match. I was very nervous leading up to it, but [the coaching staff said] it was a free run. They said to go out and not to worry if I made mistakes because no-one would get mad at me.”

Even though the Hockeyroos drafted two other uncapped players – Victorians Olivia Downes and Aisling Utri – into the squad to fill in for injured players, Australia dominated the three-Test series, winning it 2-1.

While she’ll long remember the celebrations and sense of achieving a lifelong goal, Kavanagh said she’d consciously clung to the feeling of empowerment the Hockeyroo’s coaching staff gave her.

“That advice allowed my first game [as a Hockeyroo] to be a lot more relaxed than I thought it would be,” she said.  “Hearing that has stuck with me, and I’ve taken it into my other games since.

“I also took from the experience of playing for Australia to, structurally, be very aggressive in how I play. I’ve also taken on board the feeling I finished [the series] with . . .  to keep giving [hockey] everything I’ve got.”

The talented midfielder said the one of the reasons behind her rapid rise to the national team – being named the Player of the National under 21 tournament – was something all young players should take note of.

“I think what it says is every tournament we go to, and every selection camp we attend is that they are looking even if you don’t think they are. You always need to make sure you’re on the ball and playing at your best.

“I didn’t think anything would come out of being named Player of the Tournament, but something quite special did. It’s the approach I’ll certainly be taking into every camp or tournament . . . the idea of giving it everything you’ve got.”

Kavanagh, who is a junior product of the Pennant Hills Hockey Club in Sydney’s north-west, also has good reason to feel a deep sense of achievement in representing the NSW Pride, the Hockey One League’s defending champions.

“Another of my goals when I grew up was to represent the NSW Arrows, I always envisioned myself doing that,” she said. “When the Arrows changed to NSW Pride four years ago it remained my goal to play for them because it’s essentially still the same team.

“I treated being selected for the Pride as a big milestone, and it certainly pushed me in the right direction of debuting for Australia this year.”

Even though Kavanagh starts this season as a bona fide Hockeyroo – cap No 521 – she admitted it was sometimes still daunting to call the likes of fellow NSWIS scholarship holders Kaitlin Nobbs, who has played 112 games for Australia, Grace Stewart (111), Jocelyn Bartram (48), Mariah Williams (47) and Greta Hayes (46) her Pride teammates.

“I’m learning as much as I can from them all, but I’m also trying to make sure I’m not intimidated by them,” conceded Kavanagh. “I don’t want to [allow that] because that’s when I risk going into my shell and not playing at my best.

“So, I try and take everything I can with experience and knowledge, but I’m also trying to build [on my own game] from them.”

Kavanagh also conceded that over the years she’s learnt plenty from former Hockeyroos midfielder Kate Jenner, the player she adopted as her ‘favourite’ when she was a nine year old who marveled at Jenner’s skill and class during the London Olympic Games.

“I watched Kate play at the 2012 Olympics on television, and then I was fortunate enough to have her coach me a few ‘Nationals ago’,” said Kavanagh. “Now she’s [a coach] at NSWIS.

“She played in the same position as me. I loved Kate’s style of play, she’s someone who I strive to be like.”

Jenner, who won two gold Commonwealth Games medals during her illustrious 138 match career for the Hockeyroos, said Kavanagh’s concern about being “intimidated” by the records and prowess of her high-profile teammates was “perfectly natural” for a younger player. She’s simply urged Kavanagh to be ‘herself’.

“Alana just has to play to her strengths,” said Jenner, a dual Olympian and Gen 32 coach at NSWIS. “It’s just a matter of playing to her strengths . . . who she is . . .  really understanding that and just playing to it.

“She doesn’t have to do much more outside of that. Just be herself, play to her skills, and continue to do what got to her to that place. Playing for Australia [at 20] was a good little taste of what’s next for her.

“Now it’s about making the improvements through the feedback that she’s received so she can – again – make the most of the opportunity and put her best foot forward.”

Ben Senior, NSWIS’s Head Coach of Women’s Hockey and Assistant coach of the Pride, described Kavanagh as a player with the skill to not only read the game fluently, but also how smartly she  responds to what she sees.

“The way Alana reads the game is one of her key strengths, but she also has physical attributes,” said Senior. “Her speed, her aerobic capacity.

“But when you couple that with her very good reading of the game . . .  [it means] she’s in the right position, she’s set, she’s early, and that allows her to win the contest often. As a defender that’s a massive attribute.

“On the other side of the coin – attack – she can accelerate and get ahead when she’s made an interception. That means she can break the line once she’s made a tackle, so she has the ability to turn defence into attack quickly on the transition.

“It’s a massive – and a brilliant – trait for a player to have.”

Daniel Lane, NSWIS