The final 4 days had been fairly mentally strenuous for the Indian hockey workforce. The force they have been beneath, the painful go out from the World Cup at house, the tricky questions requested of them – it’s been difficult to take for the Harmanpreet Singh-led outfit.
But the 8-0 hammering of Japan has helped soothe issues a little. The complete victory with out conceding a purpose towards the Asian Games gold medallists on Thursday night time upped the arrogance, bringing a grin again at the faces of the workforce that misplaced to New Zealand within the crossovers on Sunday.
“The first 24 hours after the defeat to New Zealand was tough to get over. It’s been a tough three days. There was a mixture of lots of feelings – disappointment and frustration that we’ve let people down and all those sorts of things. But what I was proud of is that we tried to keep the focus on these next two games. It’s only half the job done at the moment,” mentioned India leader trainer Graham Reid.
Having received the 9-16 classification playoff, the hosts will now face South Africa within the 9-12 place fit in Rourkela on Saturday. If India wins they’ll end both 9th or tenth. If they lose, eleventh or twelfth. Twelfth is the worst end for India at London 1986 when India completed final.
“It’s really good that we would put some context on the fact that there’s the Asian Games coming up later in the year and we’ll be playing Japan again at that point. So, it was important to perform. But also just for our pride. That was the main topic of discussion – we needed to do it for ourselves.”
There has been numerous chatter about Reid’s long run within the Indian setup after the defeat to New Zealand. The Australian joined the setup in April 2019 together with his spotlight coming when he guided India to their first Olympic medal in 41 years in Tokyo. But ends up in tournaments have wavered since then.
“I have signed a contract through to Paris (2024 Olympics). But we’ll be reviewing I assume at the end of this (World Cup). But for now, our next game is South Africa. That is what I’m focusing on. on,” mentioned Reid.
The scenario can be a bit difficult if Reid leaves or is requested to with the Asian Games coming in September and the Paris Olympics subsequent yr. A brand new trainer coming in so past due earlier than essential multi-disciplinary occasions may well be dangerous.
Hockey India (HI) president Dilip Tirkey previous within the week mentioned the imaginable appointment of a psychological conditioning trainer for the workforce. Most best groups around the globe have sports activities psychologists touring with the groups, assisting the gamers on every occasion in want.
“The discussion has come up before. We have access to sports psychologists within SAI (Sports Authority of India) but it’s a bit different when they’re operating inside your team environment. It’s a big thing to have one attached to your team and then have trust within the group. I need to be able to feel trust in the coaching group so it’s not a thing that’s taken lightly,” mentioned Reid.
“We were making progress on the mental toughness side. But the home World Cup does bring that extra pressure. Sometimes it is difficult to process. I also needed to feel comfortable that we can trust that person and it needs to be the right person. They’re sometimes difficult to choose and it needs to be an Indian.”
There has also been a lot of talk about the bench strength of the Indian team, and whether it is good enough to match the best in the world. Top teams like Australia, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany – the four semi-finalists here – have a club culture where players usually play matches against the best in the world and are in shape because of regular matches.
In India, however, there is no club culture with the top players attending national camps for most of the year, playing practice games against each other. When they get time off, they normally play domestic tournaments for their departments whose level is way off the international standards.
“We need a competition that is closer to international competition. We had Hockey India League (HIL) before. That was really good. But it’s very difficult to just create a club culture out of nothing. That’s the problem. It ends up being a hard task whereas something like HIL is perhaps a little bit easier. You have the monetary factors behind all that. I don’t think there’s anyone who wouldn’t love to see HIL back. Maybe it needs to be designed from scratch,” concluded Reid.