Fans have voted World Hockey Player of the Year Jamie Dwyer as captain of the World Hockey All Star Team.

Dwyer, 28, was the clear cut choice from fans on the FIH site www.worldhockey.org as skipper for the team of the best 18 male players on the planet.

Fellow Kookaburras Bevan George, Brent Livermore and Mark Knowles were also selected in the elite side.

While delighted with individual honours, Dwyer would swap these awards for an Olympic gold medal in Beijing next August.

"It's a great personal achievement,' Dwyer told AAP.

"I probably took this one in more than the 2004 award, it just shows I have been playing consistent."

"I'd trade anything for another gold medal at the Olympics, that's what you want as a team sport.

On Thursday Dwyer along with veterans George, 30, Livermore, 31 and Matthew Wells, 29, were left out of the Kookaburras squad for the Five Nation Tournament in South Africa next month.

This omission was planned last June/July as part of the bigger picture for 2008, Dwyer said.

"Next year is a very big year and it's probably better if the core of the group, myself, Brent Livermore, Matthew Bell, Bevan George have a rest now for a month, one-and-a-half months," the striker-cum-midfielder said.

"We're going to be training really hard next year to retain our gold medal."

Knowles, 23, joined his fellow Rockhampton player, Dwyer, when he was named World Hockey Young Player of the Year for 2007.

"I don't know what the odds are of both of us winning it from the same city, especially a small city in Australia," 2004 winner Dwyer said.

The defender was surprised with the young player's award this year as time out in 2007 after hernia surgery in May.

"It was definitely a shock," Knowles said.

"I've been nominated three years in a row, probably this was one year where I thought I wasn't a chance."

Like Dwyer, Knowles would prefer a second Olympic success than personal awards.

"(Win an) Olympic gold medal before anything else," Knowles said.

"We've grown four years older and not too many players have dropped out of the team.

"Definitely leading in we have a better chance than what we had in Athens."

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