Olympic gold medallist Nathan Eglington insists there is no such thing as an Olympics curse on the Kookaburras as they begin preparations for Rio 2016.
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One man who will certainly be looking to bring home gold next year is Goulburn's Glenn Turner.
Turner was selected in the Kookaburras squad by Hockey Australia on Thursday after overcoming a pectoral injury. Canberra goalkeeper Andrew Charter was also selected.
The 31-year-old was overlooked for the Commonwealth Games squad in 2014 and after receiving another chance with the national side, he will surely be looking to add gold to his bronze medal from London.
The team was unable to win gold at an Olympics until Athens in 2004, when Eglington was on the team.
This gold medal dry spell ignited talk of an Olympic curse and with consecutive bronze medals at Beijing and London expectations for Rio are high.
However, Eglington, who is an assistant coach of the Kookaburras, maintains outside pressures have not hampered preparations.
"The players understand the Olympic Games is its own beast," Eglington said.
"You need mental toughness and a little bit of luck, but you need belief more than anything. There's no doubt in my mind that the Kookaburras believe they can win."
Eglington was in Canberra where he joined his gold medal-winning teammates Brent Livermore and Matthew Wells to assist national junior coach Ben Bishop at a junior camp.
Livermore is head coach at the NSW Institute of Sport, while Wells is his counterpart at the Queensland Academy of Sport.
They, along with Eglington, believe it is crucial and rewarding to pass on their knowledge in the hopes of ensuring the Kookaburras' success into the future.
"I love coming back and being a part of it," Livermore said.
"It really gives me a similar type of buzz as to when I got selected to go to a major tournament when I was competing myself. Australian hockey is in a really good place, I'm very happy with it."
The Kookaburras will next compete for their state teams in the Australian Hockey League in Darwin in September-October.
They will then regroup for October's Oceania Cup in New Zealand and Test matches against India in November.
Kookaburras squad: Daniel Beale, Kiel Brown, Joel Carroll, Andrew Charter, Chris Ciriello, Tom Craig, Matthew Dawson, Tim Deavin, Jamie Dwyer, Matt Gohdes, Blake Govers , Kieran Govers, Jeremy Hayward, Leon Hayward, Fergus Kavanagh, Mark Knowles, Tyler Lovell, Trent Mitton, Eddie Ockenden, Simon Orchard, Glenn Simpson, Matthew Swann, Glenn Turner, Jake Whetton, Tristan White, Dylan Wotherspoon, Aran Zalewski.
