00:00Trinidad and Tobago's men's indoor hockey team retained home on Tuesday night from the
00:04World Cup in Croatia, with the team finishing at the bottom of the table, that being 12th
00:09position.
00:10During a small reception for the players at the Piacco International Airport, coach Rafael
00:13Govaya made it clear more should have been done for the team.
00:17This trip was a tough one for all of us, you know, it started off with a lot of ups and
00:25downs in terms of the facilities and so on, and you all obviously know in my reports and
00:30so on how I operate, I would be that little misery to keep prodding and being a pest to
00:41people to make sure that we get training times.
00:43Govaya was full of praise for his players and the staff for doing their part with the
00:47resources that were available.
00:49According to the coach, if a proper structure is put in place, that could go a long way.
00:53I mentioned about ensuring that coaches and their players are given everything that's
01:04possible for our athletes to perform at the highest level wherever we go, and not just
01:12get funding for them to say, okay, we're sending you to Pan Am, we're sending you to our qualifier,
01:20we're sending you to World Cup, and you have the funding to go and perform.
01:24I think there's a lot more than that is needed for our athletes.
01:28Sharing similar sentiments was team captain Darren Cowie, who stated that the other countries
01:33had players who specialize in indoor hockey, whereas TNT had to build a team comprising
01:37those who play both indoor and outdoor hockey.
01:40I felt it was a very high competition, extremely competitive, obviously, because we don't get
01:47as much international exposure.
01:50We depend on actually getting there in competition to realize the level of competition that we
01:56did face.
01:58Talking to the other players and coaches and technical staff, they train year-round for
02:03this, not only with their national teams, but also in their clubs, they have high-level
02:08competition in their club leagues.
02:10A lot of them travel to Europe to play competitions in European clubs.
02:15TNT lost all their games at the World Cup.
02:18Despite that, Cowie said there were some positives for the Red, White and Black.
02:22I think the highlight would have been knowing that, I think every single game, aside from
02:26the Croatia game where we were kind of deflated, I think every other game it felt like we were
02:31in it.
02:32We had early chances to take the lead.
02:35In some games we did take the lead and held the lead for long periods, I'd say by like
02:39third quarter, middle third quarter, going into fourth quarter is where we let the game
02:43get away from us.
02:44It's just that discipline aspect.
02:46I would say the highlight is knowing that we could have run with those teams, despite
02:50the scoreline at the end and despite not finishing in a higher rank than we would have expected.
02:57Cowie isn't a coaching, but came out of retirement just to captain the TNT side at the World
03:02Cup.
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