THE Guyana Hockey Board (GHB) will continue its search for a new technical director following the unavailability of Australian-born Jerome Buck.

Buck, who had indicated an interest in the position early last month pulled out due to personal reasons, according to the GHB president Philip Fernandes.

“Due to personal reasons, he had to cancel his visit. We are disappointed, he is disappointed also, but now we have to put heads together to see where we go from here.”

The GHB president added, “We have with our men’s national team, the traditional coach in Robert Fernandes, who has been doing a good job so we think that he can continue to do the same.”

Buck was slated to be the women’s national coach as well and this recent fallout has left the GHB with a void to fill.

“With the women’s team, it’s a little bit more difficult because right now, we are without a women’s national coach, and we need to find resources that can fill that hole.”

Commenting on the state of the women’s game, Fernandes added that there are some shortcomings when compared to the international standard but they are fixable.

“We have a good crop of original players who have some experience but we’ve had some retirees so we have new players coming in.

He added, “Those players need to be taught the basic principles of how the team will play and to understand the other players so we can have a cohesive team.”

“So there is some work to be done and the new person coming in will certainly have his or her hands full to try to see what they can do with that,” were his words of advice to anyone attempting to take the post.

The GHB is preparing for the CAC games in August in Colombia.