No Alexandra Heerbaart, no Laurien Leurink and no brand new world champions in the persons of Trijntje Beljaars and Mette Winter. The start of the women of SCHC in the Hoofdklasse Hall was anything but ideal in terms of personnel, but with four points from the first two matches, coach Lucas Judge could be satisfied. “It takes time to find each other again,” says captain Anna de Geus.
A 3-3 in the opening match against Rotterdam and a convincing 4-1 win over newly promoted Voordaan. That was the result of the first round of play in the Hoofdklasse Hall, on Sunday afternoon in a well-filled Sports Center Olympos in Utrecht. A great start for the team that reached the play-offs for the national indoor title for the first time in history last season, but is still far from being at full strength.
After all, all-rounder Leurink was still enjoying her new marriage to Robbert van de Peppel, and Beljaars and Winter were still getting some rest after they won the world title with the Dutch Juniors in Chile last week. We will not see goalkeeper Heerbaart again at SCHC this season (see box below). Her place under the bar is taken by Marsha Zwezereijn. Furthermore, youth player Julie Smorenburg played two games in the hall last Sunday.
Difficult to play hockey
“It’s a bit of a trial and error again at the start of the indoor competition,” responds Anna de Geus, with sweat still on her forehead just after the 4-1 win over Voordaan. ‘Each team plays in a different composition every year. Your own team has also changed again. We have only been training in the hall for three weeks. It always takes some time to find each other. If the details are not yet correct, it is difficult to enjoy playing hockey. You saw that in our ball handling, in the press and mutual positioning.’
Anna de Geus on behalf of SCHC in a duel with Iris Hollander from Rotterdam. Photo: Bart Scheulderman.
De Geus still had to clearly find her rhythm. The technically skilled and ball-stable player was often caught sloppy. “I played sloppily and made quite a few technical mistakes,” she admits honestly. ‘It still didn’t look great positionally. You would prefer to immediately be back at the level you finished at the previous hall period, but that is of course not possible. That was the result of three months of long and hard training. We have to be patient, but at times you saw beautiful combinations emerge on the field.’
As a venue enthusiast, De Geus does it for those beautiful combinations. There is nothing more satisfying in indoor hockey than devising and executing tactical plans to perfection. This year, De Geus has a leading role in tinkering with the automatisms, because she wears the captain’s armband.
“Well, I especially like it,” she says. ‘And with the loss of the Dutch team, I will now be present for the entire indoor season, haha. I learned a lot last year during the two indoor tournaments with the Oranje Dames. Nice to now convey those experiences to the rest of the team. But I didn’t necessarily need the band for that, I already did that. Now I can only do the toss as an extra, haha.’
Mariëtte Boot (left) listens carefully to the instructions given by Anna de Geus. Photo: Bart Scheulderman.
De Geus finds it difficult to estimate exactly where SCHC stands after the first two matches in the Hoofdklasse Hall. ‘It would be nice to reach the play-offs again this season, but for the time being we will have to wait and see. The young girls who are now fully involved [Maud van den Heuvel and Mariëtte Boot] are a good addition. Laurien, Mette and Trijntje will join us again in January. We will keep this ever-changing composition for a while, because everyone has the freedom to have a weekend off if possible. We have had a busy first half of the season, and we have a very busy second half of the season coming up.”
Stripe through Orange
The word Orange has been mentioned. A bright future lay ahead for 24-year-old De Geus as an indoor international. Last December she made her debut at an indoor tournament during the European Championships in Hamburg and less than two months later she also played the World Cup in South Africa. But due to the KNHB’s decision to stop international indoor hockey, no new medals will be added to its European Championship silver and World Cup gold.
Anna de Geus in full concentration at the 2022 European Championships in Germany. Photo: Willem Vernes
De Geus: ‘I had just joined the Dutch team, after having been part of the training group for a number of years. If you have experienced those tournaments, you always want more. I was really looking forward to playing next year’s European Championships in Berlin. Many of my Dutch teammates had played the World Cup there in 2018. They all thought that was the coolest thing they had ever experienced.’
It has now been widely reported that the decision came as a shock to the indoor internationals. The relevant question that now arises: does it have a negative effect on her as a SCHC player? De Geus: ‘It certainly does something to my experience in the hall. We trained a lot with Oranje, so the difference in hours is very big and noticeable. You invest less time in it, you spend less time on it. The experience of the complete picture is different. But… it doesn’t suddenly make me less fun.’
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by Hockey.nl
