The Hockeyroos cannot afford to think about next year’s Olympic Games or they may find themselves not heading to Japan at all, according to co-captain Emily Chalker.

The Australians must beat 19th ranked Russia in a two-game series starting tomorrow at Perth Hockey Stadium to qualify for the Tokyo Games.

Last month’s narrow loss to New Zealand on goal difference in the best-of-three Oceania Cup cost the three-time Olympic gold medallists early qualification.

“I guess the pressure is high but every day for us is a pressure situation,” Chalker said.

“We know that if we play our style of game, we can go out and dominate the Russian girls.

“If things don’t go well this week, we wont have an Olympics to worry about.”

Chalker believes Russia will come out with plenty of attacking flair and take it to the more fancied Australians.

“They have some skilful midfielders who like to attack through the middle and a striker who has the ability to score goals from anywhere in the circle,” she said.

“Often when you play teams of a lower world ranking they like to park the bus or just over-defend and make it hard for teams to score against them. But I think Russia don’t do that.

“They go out there and want to show people they can play the game aggressively.

“They obviously have a chance at Olympic qualification, so they are not going to be taking it lightly at all. We are going to have to be up for the challenge.”

If Russia do come out with intent, Chalker said they would be met by a determined Hockeyroos outfit who were well aware of what was on the line.

“We will be going as hard as we can from the first whistle,” she said.

“This is our last chance to qualify and we absolutely want to go out and prove that it was just a mishap against New Zealand and we are on track to have success at the Olympics.

“I think for us it will all be about execution, stopping their attacking threats but also making sure we are getting scoreboard pressure on as early as we can.”