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The answer is that this team are exploring uncharted territory with a brand new training programme, cutting-edge psychological profiling, and an influx of young players prepared to grasp those developments and make the most of them.

Because simply believing you can win won't make it true. Everybody knows that, even if England do say something beyond the combined sum of their individual talents is driving their recent improvement.

That culminated in Sunday's bronze medal play-off, where the tournament hosts came from behind to beat Germany 2-1 and reach the podium.

Not only that, they shrugged off missing the final by a whisker, first (which would have guaranteed them a shot at the gold medal) then watching in horror as Argentina scored a last-gasp winner against China. Argentina went into the final with that goal; England were relegated to the play-off for third.

"There was obviously huge disappointment on Saturday," said , the team's talismanic defender charged with responsibility for penalty corners, hockey's set pieces which so often decide games. A goal from Cullen against Germany sealed bronze.

"In 24 hours we overcame learning we weren't going to be in the final and were able to turn it around. I've been in plenty of teams before where we would go out with our tail between our legs and feel aggrieved. But this team is different."

, the team captain, added: "We only had a short amount of time to pick ourselves up, but we believe. We know we can do it and we came back and did it.

"We've not had that much belief before - it takes results to give you that belief. It's been building over the week and now we're going into the and with that belief."

The word gets four outings in four sentences, with reference to England in a game against Germany, something fans of other sports might wish were .

Yes, winning matches is a big factor, and England had the best possible start to the tournament when they , who went on to win gold, 2-1.

But the team spirit evoked by these players after every victory is not a happy accident borne of a winning streak, it's something hockey in this country has been specifically engineering for years.

The problem for British hockey teams at the Olympics used to be that they only came into existence in the year leading up to the Games. For the other three years there was no Britain, just England, Scotland and Wales.

Team GB were hardly a team at all, more an all-star side sent to face the world's finest hockey-playing units with a few training sessions and all good wishes. After bronze at Barcelona '92, they reached a nadir when they failed to even qualify for the Athens Games in 2004.

That has changed. For the first time, a British squad - for both men and women - is being maintained for almost the entire Olympic cycle up until London 2012. England, Scotland and Wales still exist and they are the teams entered into all hockey's recognised major tournaments, like the Champions Trophy and World Cup. But, between events, the players join together as Great Britain.

This is called the Centralised Programme, and it came into being as part of a deal signed in May 2006. That was the moment Great Britain became a team. The England team, who make up the vast majority of the Britain squad, are reaping the rewards.

"This has come from the Centralised Programme," England star told me after the Germany win.

"In October 2009 (when the current phase of the programme kicked in) we all came together and set our sights on the Olympics and winning that gold medal at London 2012.

"We've had a lot more contact time on the pitch, which has given us a better understanding in attack and defence. We know each other better and we want to work hard for each other.

"If we'd done all that training since October and then come here and things hadn't gone so well, it would've been hard to see the gains. But you can see them. We've shown them."

So more training time together, with better structure, is giving players an understanding of each other's abilities which they didn't have before, and which augments their individual skills. It's the old saying, becoming more than a team of individuals, but it has taken a shift in mindset and a contract between the 91热爆 Nations to make it a reality.

But that isn't all. Hockey is now employing sports psychology in a big way. A "performance development consultancy" named is working to improve the way coaches and players interact, while English Institute of Sport psychologist spends a few days each week with the British women.

His role is to mix what he calls "proactive" psychology - sessions around competitions, engaging players in regular one-to-ones - with "reactive" work whenever players bring issues like anxiety or poor performance to him.

"This team were a strong unit already," Cross, who had an England under-18 hockey trial himself, told me. "I'm just enhancing their strengths. We work on team dynamics and quite a few of the girls are from the under-21s, so we try to form the connection between them and the senior athletes.

"That means creating a shared vision, agreeing values and behaviours that the girls create and buy into themselves. They understand where they personally are coming from, and where their team-mates are coming from.

"My messages to the team are consistent: stay in the present, play the game moment by moment and don't think about the outcome. Communication is huge, keep doing that whether you are 2-0 up or 2-0 down. Keep doing the things that are making you win these games."

England's bronze medal-winning hockey believers. Photo: 91热爆

Which sounds easier said than done, especially once the women reach London 2012, where the pressure on them to deliver - - will be immense. The term "home disadvantage" is used to encapsulate the way some teams crumble faced with that challenge, and it is something Cross is already trying to combat.

"This tournament in Nottingham, at home with six of the best teams in the world, is a step. What's different here to playing away? What are the challenges, the positives and negatives?

"It's really small things that can alter your mindset in a game, like whether volunteers speak to you when you go out onto the pitch, or not being allowed to go somewhere where, before the tournament, you were allowed to go.

"And it's how not to change stuff as well. If it is working for you, let's keep it going. The Olympics is different but it's the same as well. We've already started work on that, and we will work on it for the next couple of years."

This is all good news from a British point of view, but it overlooks two things. The first is that England did not win gold in Nottingham, so improvements are manifestly there to be made - something the team readily admit.

"We still have a lot to work on, let's not be silly about this," said Richardson. "At times we're still outplayed by the best teams. So we'll go back to training, look at those things and try and make ourselves even better."

She plans to spend the next two weeks watching back videos from Nottingham, moment by moment, teasing out improvements.

Her team-mate Walsh turns this into a positive, saying: "We've still got a long way to go but that's the most exciting thing. We've got outstanding players to come back into this squad and we've got so far to go, the sky's the limit.

"We want a gold medal in London, that's what we're training for every single day of ours lives. That's what we're going to do for the next two years."

Argentina celebrate their Champions Trophy victory. Photo: 91热爆

The second point is that the British cannot hope to possess a monopoly on belief, even if they do have it like never before. Argentina hardly seemed to be lacking that commodity as they , bellowing the tune of their national anthem into the deafened ears of bronze medallists England below.

So something more is going to need to develop before 2012 if Britain are to reach the Olympic podium or climb to the top. And that is where age comes into it.

At the press conference following England's bronze medal win, Walsh spoke of a "blend of youth and experience" which played with "no fear", and the key to Olympic success may be how this embryonic belief matures alongside the players.

That is why the psychologists are hard at work. Players have filled out complex online profiles, producing 18-page reports on their personalities, strengths and weaknesses, and value to the team. And they get to know about each others', too.

No fewer than 10 players retired or were dropped from the British women's squad after Beijing 2008, , and an arsenal of mental firepower is being concentrated on blending the remaining old guard with the new breed over the next two years.

"Eleven of this group are under 25 years of age so, come London 2012, our average age will still be a little bit young for my liking," admitted England and Britain head coach .

While much of what Kerry said about his young charges applied to tactics, it has a bearing on mentality too.

"A number of young players are fighting a lot of habits about certain things," he said.

"I'm up on the team radio (during matches) saying, 'Right, time for her to come off, she's reverted to type.'

"That's what we're fighting against. It's when you get two or three individuals who revert to type that you can lose your way."

If the team's belief is a relatively new commodity, it can be easily lost. England need to keep believing, and Kerry is confident they can - starting with the women's World Cup, in Argentina in just over a month's time, where the target is to reach the semi-finals.

"I'm hugely excited. We've only had eight months of centralised training, and we've got two years of that left," he concluded.

"We know how far we've come in eight months, and I know how much further we'll go. I just know how much better we'll get. I can't wait."

Mental strength is an increasingly important consideration for Olympic sports and their athletes - both teams and individuals. In the next week, I'll have a blog on an individual British gold-medal prospect for 2012, examining how she is working on her mentality two years out from the biggest competition of her life.

Match report and video highlights:
My photos from the Champions Trophy