It takes a lot for a coach to accept the shortcomings of his team, especially when the side has remained unbeaten in its four-match return to international competition after a long break, imposed by Covid-19 outbreak. Graham Reid, Chief Coach of the Indian men’s hockey team, has shown courage, humility and a down-to-earth approach at the end of the tour of Europe.
“We are getting into the 25-mark a lot, we found that during our FIH Pro League matches, too, but we need to get better returns from such entries. Covert them into circle entries, goal shots, and penalty corners. We have tried some different things here in Europe. Some things worked, some didn’t. Overall, I am quite happy,” Reid said in a Hockey India media release.
The Indian team fortnight-long tour of Europe was its first assignment since February 22, 2020 when it played its second FIH Pro League match against Australia. The team stayed together for most of the 10 months in the bio-secure environment in Sports Authority of India’s Southern Centre, Bengaluru.
“I’m pretty happy with the performance; I’m very happy with the way the tour was — from point of view of getting some international competition. That was really important,” he said. “We go back to (the Netaji Subhas Southern Centre of Excellence) Bengaluru and will be training there for a few weeks before we set out for FIH Pro League matches in Argentina.”
Reid said the coaching staff would go over the data from the tour of Europe upon return to the home base. “The first thing that require attention is: making sure we tighten our defence. We allow them (opponents) to come back in the middle (of the game) a bit too much. The last match was a little bit better. We are starting to make some ground on that,” he said.
“Our performances against Germany were mixed. It was pretty good beating them 6-1, we took them by surprise and made good use of the opportunities, but we let too many penalty corners in. The (drawn) second game saw better defensive efforts from us,” Reid said, drawing attention to the matches in Krefeld.
Speaking about the two matches against Britain in Antwerp, Belgium, the Chief Coach said the 1-1 draw was okay. “It was a bit colder, different pitch and perhaps we didn’t play as well as we should have. But the last game (India won 3-2) was first-class. We led most of the game, came back twice from a stalemate, scored in the last few minutes, a really important thing,” he said.
“I believe the next few months leading up to Tokyo is going to be busy for us with competition and some training in between where we will work on the things we need to. The Olympic year has well and truly started now for us and we need to accelerate our learnings,” he said.
Image (top): Graham Reid (Photo courtesy: Hockey India)
