Reading wish the best of luck to Simon Mantell and Dan Shingles who are both part of the GB squad competing in the World League finals in Raipur (November 27 to December 6).

GB are in Pool B, along with Canada, Australia and Belgium. The other group comprises hosts India, Argentina. German and Holland.
Both spoke to Dave Wright before flying out to India. This is what they had to say:

Simon Mantell:
This will be my first tournament for more than a year and I am very excited to get back to playing for GB.
When you get to this level of competition, every game is going to be tough. We are excited about the prospect of playing the top teams. We have Australia in our group and that will be a very tough test. We are missing a few experienced players but it gives an opportunity to others and also hopefully a good platform to show how far we have come as a squad over the last three years. It is going to be challenge but one where we have a good chance of proving that we have a good depth in the squad.
India is a great country for hockey. It is a great place to play in terms of the crowd, as supporters are very passionate. For those who have not played out there before, it will be a very good experience.
I have played out there before in the Commonwealth Games, World League semi-finals and the Indian Hockey League.

Dan Shingles:
We need to be on top of our game in India. It is a changed squad, but I am confident we will do well. Everyone in the squad is here for a reason. Yes, there are guys not going who are vastly experienced, but ultimately we are a squad and the guys are all very good international players. Every one picked to represent Great Britain is expected to perform. All three teams in our squad will offer different challenges. A lot in our group don't have much experience of playing against Canada but we will do our research and will know what they are about. We are much more used to playing against Australia and Belgium. They have very different sort of styles and I think the real challenge for us is how we adapt our game to playing against different teams. Again we will do our research on them, put it into training and then it's just a matter of executing a performance
This tournament is an important step towards Rio which is now getting closer. As a team, we really want to start building up and peaking, so we can take good form into the Olympics, and also individually as each of us will want to prove ourselves. We are looking forward to it, as it is always nice to go to India. It will be a good tournament out there and we will certainly do the best we can.

Good news for hockey fans is that BT Sport are to screen all games in the men’s World League Final as well as the women’s World League Final in Rosario, Argentina, between December 5-13.