Tokyo Olympics 2020: Hockeyroos coach Katrina Powell first address, Hockey Australia, Japan Games, gold medal, Rachael Lynch, Paul Gaudion

After years of discontent, the Hockeyroos had a head coach – a woman of all people – in their corner. A two-time gold medallist, who had walked the same path they were setting out on.

If the Hockeyroos were an NRL or AFL team, allegations of bullying, body-shaming, sexualisation and a general lack of care and understanding for their athletes both during and after their careers would have surfaced years ago.

It would have filled front and back pages of newspapers and led news bulletins.

Instead, because of the nature of an Olympic sport, which captures the attention of the nation every four-year cycle, it regrettably went unnoticed. The checks and balances which generally apply to high-performance sport and professional organisations went unseen.

Only after two of the leading players – Rachael Lynch and former captain Georgie Morgan – in the Hockeyroos were sensationally dropped from the squad in late 2020 was a light shined on the shortcomings of Hockey Australia.

It took a group of courageous female athletes – past and present – to threaten a strike at the end of 2020 and leak to the media for an investigation to open.

The independent investigation found the Hockeyroos program was “dysfunctional” and made 29 recommendations to the governing body.

On the eve of those findings being handed, former coach Paul Gaudion stepped down.

His departure followed a string of big name departures including high performance director Toni Cumpston and later Hockey Australia CEO Matt Favier.

So when Powell, who claimed gold at her home Olympics in 2000, was offered her “dream job”, she left the squad crystal clear about what the Hockeyroos were about.

“I made sure they knew that I was on board,” she told News Corp.

“They knew that I was invested in the success of the Hockeyroos and had been for longer than some of them have been alive.

“That has always been my purpose.

“It’s not like I got a phone call, here’s the job, now I have a purpose. No, that purpose, the success of the Hockeyroos … I’ve been invested in them personally for a long time.

“I suppose I talked to them about the legacy of the Hockeyroos and it doesn’t leave you. I’ve been on board for what, 30 years, it’s been a long time.”

Powell is the first female to coach the Hockeyroos in 43 years.

There is no doubt her appointment has helped heal a fractured squad.

But while one of Powell’s strengths is listening and nurturing, she means business.

“I think if you leave Australia for an Olympics as an Australian hockey team you better have your eye on the big prize and that’s definitely what we’re going for,” Powell said.

“We’re heading to Tokyo to be successful, which is a gold medal. That’s what we’re going for.

“At an Olympics, you need everything, everything going your way, all of your prep has to be schmick, there’s lots of things that go to putting your best performance on the park and we were in Darwin [acclimatising] trying to make that happen.”

Powell is not delusional.

She knows the Hockeyroos are coming from a mile back.

The Hockeyroos were finally able to take on some international opposition when they faced the Black Sticks in recent months, but while they have been limited to trans-Tasman fixtures the Netherlands have been playing against rising power Germany in Europe.

Powell is hoping the lack of game-time will see the Hockeyroos fly in under the radar.

“I suppose if we get more lead-in, everybody else gets more lead-in, a few teams in our pool have also suffered from that as well, and maybe it’s given us a chance to, while still playing New Zealand, to get our way of playing sorted and under a bit of secrecy maybe,” she said.

“We’ve changed quite a bit, obviously once I came in, we changed a number of things so opposition teams haven’t really had the chance to study us.”

Once again the Dutch head into the Games as favourites.

But as was the case with the Dutch and Hockeyroos, both nations failed to meet their expectations in 2016 and in the case of Australia they crashed out in the quarter-finals.

“The Dutch lost in Rio in those same circumstances. They were number one, clearly number one, and didn’t come home with the gold medal,” Powell said.

“The pressure is more on those teams, Germany has been doing well at the Euros as well, so Holland, Germany, Argentina, they are all fancied higher than the Australian team. We’ll just use that to our advantage.”