Winds of change

Indervir Grewal

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Chandigarh, February 9

For a change, the last few months have been all about the women’s hockey team. From the high of winning the Asian Champions Trophy to the low of missing the Olympics qualification in front of home supporters, the women’s team had an eventful four months.

While the women made the headlines, the men’s team had a quiet time away from attention. After winning the Asian Games gold — and securing an Olympics berth — in early October, the men’s team has been busy training.

Having been largely inconspicuous for four months, the team’s return to action in the new season of the Pro League has aroused both excitement and anticipation.

Under a coach who has been at the helm for just over nine months, India’s game is going through structural and tactical changes. Graham Reid guided India to the Tokyo Olympics bronze medal but when his team finished a disappointing ninth at last year’s home World Cup, it was time to move on.

Right from the start, the Australian’s replacement Craig Fulton had a clear idea of the changes he wanted to make in the team. “I like to defend to win so l would like to have a solid defensive structure because that’s the first step of attacking,” Fulton had said after joining the team in April last year.

The 49-year-old South African, though, added that it was important to harness the team’s DNA, which he described as “fast, skillful, connected, counterattacking” hockey, with its strength being the “set-pieces”. To India’s game, Fulton is attempting to add variety, which would make the team adaptable to different situations. “We also need to get confident at playing half court and defending deeper,” he said.

India’s “fast” style was a handicap at times as they were not always able to control the game even against a ‘weaker’ opponent. India’s inability to kill games cost them at the big stage — they were beaten by Malaysia in the semifinals of the 2018 Asian Games and by New Zealand in the crossovers of the World Cup. On both occasions, India couldn’t protect their lead against a lower-ranked team.

Fulton was aware from the beginning that it would take some time to imprint his ideology on the team. With just months of work, though, Fulton guided India to the Asian Champions Trophy and Asian Games titles. The coach has been vocal about the need to make the Indian players mentally stronger. Therefore, he would have been pleased by the fighting spirit shown by his team in the two tournaments. They overturned a two-goal deficit against Malaysia to win the ACT final. In their Asian Games semifinal, India were not flustered by a South Korea fightback and sealed a two-goal win.

Captain Harmanpreet Singh, though, later said that becoming more consistent in defence was a major lesson from the Asian Games. “We were leading comfortably at one point, but we conceded goals and that put unnecessary pressure on us. That is something we need to work on — to stay mentally alert even when we are leading by two or three goals,” he said.

With Paris qualifying sealed, India have been able to train in peace. They tested out their game on tours of Europe (December) and South Africa (January). But the Pro League will provide the toughest challenge to Fulton’s team till date.

“We have the opportunity to play against some top-quality teams and we will get to prepare well for the Olympics,” Harmanpreet said on the eve of their match against Spain. “We’ve been working on the areas that needed attention and we’ll look to execute them in these matches that are extremely important to us,” he added.

It’s a distraction: Fulton on allegation against Varun

Bhubaneswar: The rape allegation against defender Varun Kumar is a distraction for the men’s hockey team and his absence from the FIH Pro League will be treated as an injury setback, India’s chief coach Craig Fulton said today. “If you took it as an injury, someone now is injured. What would you do? What are the plans in place in the event of an injury? So, Varun is not here. What is the plan? There always is a plan for anyone that gets injured for a long time… (be it) striker, midfield or defence. So we’re going on the level of professionalism we have in the group, the values that we hold. It’s a distraction, it’s challenging, it’s not great but we have to move forward, we have a plan in place on how we go,” the coach said. PTI

Pro League: India leg

India, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain and Australia will face each other in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela.