Toussaint lauds triumph over adversity
T&T’s senior men’s hockey team thrashed Paraguay 13-0 to remain perfect after one round of matches at the Pan American Challenge Tournament on the turf of the Andres Avelino Caceres Sports Complex in Lima, Peru, Sunday.
The local team is yet to concede a goal after three matches and coach Akim Toussaint credited a meeting of minds, including himself, Darren Cowie, Dwayne Quan Chan and Glen Francis, for this country’s convincing showing in Lima.
“The team performance is really good so far, sticking to the plan. It really shows that the work that the pool of coaches put in, coming together and giving each other ideas, is paying off,” Toussaint said. “It’s just for us to keep that momentum because we have every team to play again.”
T&T’s leading scorer Teague Marcano drew first blood for the third time this tournament, Shaquille Daniel doubled the lead and Marcano converted a penalty corner he won as T&T ended the first stanza with a 3-0 lead.
At the half, the “Calypso Stickmen” led 5-0 after Nicholas Grant scored from open play and Sheldon De Lisle bagged from another penalty corner.
Almost to double figures a day before, T&T’s players applied themselves to score a further eight in the second half.
Daniel got his brace, Marcano got his hat-trick and Jovan Wren and Shawn Phillip got in on the act to rack up a 9-0 lead heading into the fourth period.
There, Marcano bagged another three goals and Grant made it a double as T&T recorded the largest win of the Challenge thus far.
T&T began with a 2-0 win over Peru but really got going with a 9-0 win over Guatemala on Saturday morning.
Now, Toussaint believes T&T is poised to go to the final having not conceded, saying: “And only today we got penalty corners against us, we had no penalty corners in the first two games. It’s a testament to the kind of defensive work and defensive energy the team is putting in as well as that attacking prowess so we don’t see any hiccups at all heading to the final.”
He says the team has excelled despite the setbacks that affected their preparation for the Pan American Cup qualifier, chief among them, the absence of a proper training venue.
“We actually had a lot of hiccups with venues,” Toussaint said “but we got the Hockey Centre open for a short bit for us to play two practice games that helped us fine-tune exactly what we were practising before. We were able to get out of the fellas what we wanted too because we were able to play on the correct surface twice before we left the country.”
The senior men were among the first to give the newly installed $1.4 million National Hockey Centre (NHC) turf at the Eastern Regional Sporting Complex in Tacarigua, a test run.
The facility upgrade was first floated in 2017 and has now taken around seven years to reach close to completion. Its absence has had a profound effect on the sport locally despite success at the regional level.
Toussaint said national teams have made do with a variety of solutions but the NHC can stimulate further holistic growth.
“The turf is of utmost importance for us to continue performing, we need that astroturf to continue the development of hockey in the country because we haven’t had a league in quite a while so we are not getting that many players coming through the ranks.
“If we can get a league started again at the hockey centre that would actually bring a lot of people into the sport for our national teams to continue progressing.”
Toussaint observed that the senior men’s team has always had natural camaraderie but even with six newly-capped players in the group has continued to where previous iterations left off.
Among the new crop are Tyrese Benjamin, goalkeeper Leomus Neptune, who has not been called upon to make a save, Under-21 player Levi Anderson, said to be showing maturity beyond his years, Malcolm Baptiste, who has finally gotten on the turf after touring with previous squads, and De Lisle, who has added another dimension, making T&T more effective on penalty corners.
Tuesday, T&T will face Peru for the second time at 1.45 pm (T&T time). The local team plays Guatemala on Wednesday and Paraguay on Friday at 11.30 am on both days.
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