Richard Alexander told us Great Britain's hockey team won't be looking to England's footballers for inspiration in 2012.
Alexander believes camaraderie and consistency will be key
Richard Alexander insists the Great Britain hockey team won't be looking to England's footballers for inspiration as they target success at London 2012.
Not since the gold-medal winners of 1988 have the men's hockey side won an Olympic medal but the current outfit have high hopes of rewriting history thanks to the impressive progress made by England in recent years which has seen them rise up to fourth in the world rankings.
Following Great Britain's fifth-placed finish in Beijing, England claimed a thrilling 5-3 victory over Germany to win the EuroHockey Nations Championship for the first time in 2009 and last year they finished fourth in both the World Cup and Commonwealth Games.
Great Britain usually compete at just the Olympics but they came together to win a bronze at a high quality Sultan Azlan Shah Cup event in Malaysia last month with a thrilling 4-2 victory over New Zealand, who clinched a play-off to finish third at the Commonwealths.
The England side, which make up the lion's share of the GB squad, will defend their European title in August before embarking on a Champions Trophy campaign in the winter as they look to maintain the momentum ahead of Olympic year.
And Alexander feels the secret to winning a medal at London 2012 is continued consistency - an attribute so often lacking from the country's football team.
The 29-year-old Surbiton player said: "If you'd asked me before the last Olympics I'd have said we had an outside chance of a bronze medal but it would mean us playing at our very best constantly.
"If we had played phenomenally and had a lot of luck we might have had an outside chance for silver but even then gold was out of reach.
"But we've improved so much since then and there's not a single team in the world we haven't beaten now.
"We couldn't say that before as there were still some teams we couldn't beat.
"Now it's a case of whether we can deliver it all in one tournament - that's the challenge. It's not about beating another team in a one-off game; it's about doing it consistently at a major tournament.
Football failings
"The England football team can beat anyone on their day and be brilliant but they go into a major tournament and can't replicate it over and over again.
"They'll play brilliantly one day and awfully the next. We're striving to play at a high level on a consistent basis when it really matters.
"With the experience and quality we have now, we have a strong chance of doing it.
"We're not just training to go to an Olympics and just do well - we're training to win a medal and that can only help us in terms of our drive and determination.
"Therefore if things go well for us then we'll be challenging for silver or gold and even if things go badly then we should still be in with a good shout of bronze.
"We're ranked number four in the world at the moment and we've done that through finishing highly in major tournaments over the last couple of years. As long as we keep doing this then we've got a great chance."
Team spirit
Nicknamed the 'Ratman' due to his distinctive hair, Alexander is one of the team's more wild characters and also has a reputation for causing much amusement with his funny stories when they're away on tour.
Alexander, who brought the house down with a unique duet alongside the runner up in Malaysia's version of Pop Idol 2005 at the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup tournament dinner, believes a buoyant team spirit is essential to being successful on the pitch and feels a lack of it in England's football team is another area which has probably let them down at major tournaments.
Last summer Fabio Capello's side failed miserably at the World Cup when they scraped through the group stages before suffering a humiliating 4-1 defeat at the hands of arch-rivals Germany in the last 16.
At the time much was made of a perceived lack of camaraderie in the squad while it was also reported that players were often bored between matches.
Alexander admits he was surprised and disappointed to hear about their struggles in South Africa but insists the atmosphere within the national hockey squad ensures the players remain upbeat and positive.
The 'Ratman' said: "Team spirit is massively important especially because we go away for such a long time together. You're stuck in a hotel for long periods of time and in hot countries we're not encouraged to go out on days off because it saps you're energy.
"There is a danger of getting bored but we're a fun group of lads and we're always messing about and playing practical jokes on each other.
"However, as soon as match day comes that all stops and the atmosphere becomes much more serious.
"We've managed to find a really nice balance actually and we all get on really well.
"You sometimes hear in football that certain players didn't get on - but we genuinely get on really well as a group.
"I read a few reports about how the England footballers got really bored at the World Cup and I didn't like that.
"If you can't get up to represent your country then you have to look in the mirror and ask serious questions about yourself to be honest.
"We were quite surprised by it all. They went off playing golf and had opportunities to go out and do things.
"You know the format of the tournament before you go so you must organising things to do during all the downtime you're going to have.
"You've got to keep yourself fresh.
"We play back-to-back games or day on day off, which is obviously physically more demanding than footballers getting around five days off between matches.
"We enjoy each others company and have a good laugh so hopefully that will stand us in good stead."
Experience
Their team spirit certainly helped them at the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup and Alexander feels the experience of playing together as Great Britain will be crucial.
He said: "For us to win the bronze was massively important because as England we've previously lost those games at the World Cup and the Commonwealth Games.
"It could have got to us mentally had we got to yet another third-fourth play-off and not been successful.
"Obviously we feel we should have been competing for the first or second spot as Australia were the only team ranked above in the world at that tournament but I think in the grand scheme of things the bronze could be so important.
"It's very important for us to compete as GB because you can only tell if things are working out when it's an 11 v 11 environment at the highest level.
"We will defend our European title later this year as England but we'll still be training as GB for the next two months.
"As soon as the Europeans finish in August then we'll be back training as GB again for the start of September ahead of the Champions Trophy and any other tournament in the build up to the Olympics.
"If we hadn't competed as GB in Malaysia then we'd have missed out massively in our development as a side so it was certainly the right decision."
Richard Alexander has joined fellow Great Britain stars Matt Daly and James Tindall to launch Hockey Wrappz - a fantastic product to personalise and customise your hockey stick. Head to http://www.wrappz.com/hockey/ for more details.
