Hotly anticipated Olympic quarter-final rematches headline FIH Pro League’s return to Australia
Published Mon 03 Feb 2025
The Kookaburras and Hockeyroos are just days away from entering a new era, as they prepare to take on the world’s best when the FIH Pro League returns to Australia for the first time in two years.
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Proudly supported by the NSW Government through its tourism and major events agency, Destination NSW, the FIH Pro League was formerly launched at Hickson Road Reserve in view of the iconic Sydney Opera House ahead of six action-packed match days from February 4 – 9.
Stars of the recent Olympic Games in Paris will go head-to-head, showcasing their incredible flare, pace and skill, in their first rematch since the Games.
Every night, back-to-back doubleheaders will showcase Australia’s top national teams, the Hockeyroos and Kookaburras, taking on Olympic gold medallists, Netherlands men, Olympic silver medallists, China women and eighth-ranked Spain men and women. All teams are ranked in the top eight nations in the world.
China women and the Kookaburras are out to defend their 2024 FIH Pro League crown in 2025, with the Australian men’s national team debuting an exciting lineup under new Head Coach Mark Hager, with the FIH Pro League serving as the first major title on their journey to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.
“It’s certainly a different team to the one we had in Paris and it’s exciting,” Corey Weyer said.
“These young guys are bringing all this new energy. The Netherlands went through a refresh a few years ago and it worked for them, so we’re looking forward to the young guys stepping up and playing international hockey here on home soil.”
“Our quarterfinal defeat against the Netherlands was a tough loss, and although it was a few months ago, I don't think we're all over that yet and yeah we are out looking for a bit of revenge.”
“It took us some time to get back down to earth and get out of the Clouds after winning the Olympics,” Netherlands champion Joep de Mol said.
“It's also very funny to see how quickly you turn back to the mindset of what we call ‘the disease of an athlete,’ that your performance is never good enough. And especially our coaches, they feel like it's never good enough, so they're already grinding us to make sure we get better every day.
“When you play the Kookaburras, you always get somewhat the same team, they're always very tough, they work really hard and they're very powerful and it was good to see that was, again, the case in our practice match the other day, it will be a really good match up and we’re looking forward to playing them here down under.”
“It was a typical practice match,” Corey agreed.
“It was a high-energy, high-octane sort of a game and I think these games are going to come down to who can execute best in the attacking circle and defend the best in the defensive one.”
The Hockeyroos and China women will go head-to-head in their first encounter since the Paris 2024 Olympic Games quarterfinal, with both sides showcasing a mix of Olympic experience and young, exciting talent.
We've retained a really big core group since the Paris Olympic Games and we've had a bit of a squad expansion, so we have a few more extra numbers and a lot of young blood who bring added energy to the group,” Jocelyn Bartram said.
“China and Spain are both great oppositions, and we expect them both to be incredibly tough games… playing China here at home will be a really nice experience, we’re looking forward to having the home crowd behind us in that game, cheering us on and giving us some extra love.”
View the Hockeyroos and Kookaburras squads for the Sydney FIH Pro League here:
