Edinburgh<\/a> has a significant degree of responsibility not only in terms of performing well over the coming days, but also in helping her younger teammates rise to the occasion when they face some of the best teams in the world.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s a challenge, however, that Costello relishes.<\/p>\n
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“I really enjoyed having a leadership role and I don’t feel it as a pressure. Instead,\u00a0I feel like I’m trying to pull the girls along, especially the younger girls, and share my experience,\u201d says the Scot, who won her 150th combined cap earlier this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve been in their shoes before, going to an A Division Euros, which is one of the toughest tests in the hockey calendar. I know how they feel and the nerves they\u2019ll be experiencing but actually, we’re going in with really no pressure, because ranking-wise, we shouldn’t be winning these games. So it’s just about sharing that insight to the younger girls in the squad, because they will probably be going in thinking \u2018oh my goodness, what is this going to be like?\u2019 And if you feel like that, you’re not going to play at your best.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to help them realise that they need to just play like it’s another hockey game, and that’s how everyone plays their best hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amy Costello is hopeful Scotland can spring some surprises at Eurohockey (Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n
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The past year of Costello\u2019s life has been particularly memorable.<\/p>\n
Last summer, she made her Olympic debut having been included in GB\u2019s squad for Paris 2024 and then almost immediately on her return from Olympic duty, she relocated to the Netherlands to play for Dutch side, HGC. Given the Dutch women\u2019s national side is the best in the world, it\u2019s little surprise that Costello feels she gained a massive amount by playing in the Dutch league both as a person and as a hockey player.<\/p>\n
\u201cI absolutely loved my season in Holland. From the people to the lifestyle to, obviously, the hockey, it was great and is one of the best things I’ve ever done,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe intensity in the Dutch league and the all-out attacking style they play is quite different from what I’d been used to and it\u2019s given me another dimension to my game.<\/p>\n
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\u201cGoing to Holland and playing against the Dutch players was about me challenging myself in match-play in a different setting to what I\u2019d been used to and it really worked in terms of improving as a player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scotland begin their Eurohockey Championship tomorrow, against England. With Costello having been teammates with the majority of the English squad during her time in the GB set-up, she\u2019s very familiar with many of the players, and their style of play.<\/p>\n
And while facing some of her closest friends is, she admits, a somewhat unusual prospect, she\u2019s confident she\u2019ll be able to separate the two and help the Scots make what would be a perfect start to their Eurohockey campaign if they can grab a positive result against the Auld Enemy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m looking forward to playing England and typically, when we play them, it’s tighter than on paper it should be,\u201d the Scot says.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHaving been so involved in the GB set-up alongside basically the whole England team that will be playing this week does make it tricky but we just need to separate on the pitch and off the pitch because, at the end of the day, we all want to win the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Scotland prepares to take to the pitch for the Eurohockey Championship this weekend, Amy Costello is well…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5009],"tags":[105898,748,393,118651,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-329810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scotland","8":"tag-amy-costello","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-eurohockey","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114997273745090599","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}