I would not have taken the Job if I had no faith in Indian team: Nobbs

New Delhi, 21 July: National hockey coach Michael Nobbs says despite
lot of naysayers back home and here he has full faith in his team .

‘I would not have taken this job, if I had no faith in the boys,’ he
said and added ’It is tough road ahead and I am willing to stick my
neck out but people need to have patience and I need time’

Nobbs said ‘I know there is a lot of emotions and passion for Hockey
in India but one has to be very realistic, I am rebuilding the team.
Country has the talent and I want to make best use of them’

The coach who played as centre-half for Australia in the early
eighties, said ‘I took up the challenge to be the coach of the country
for which I have lot of love and appreciation’

‘My dream is to get Indian Hockey back to its rightful place in
International sporting arena. Despite not very impressive showing by
Team India in recent times, World Hockey needs India which was once
represented by wizard Dhyan Chand.’

In last one year since ‘ I took over, there has been lot of
improvement in the team.I am not bragging, this is the fact and I
don’t want to be modest about it’, he said.

He asserted that this is the fittest Indian team in recent times
and one of the many things ‘ we brought to Indian hockey is Sports
Science’

Nobbs was happy with Hockey India’ I have been given some autonomy by
Hockey India and that has helped me a lot. I do not play favourites
nor do have one. I want best available talent in my squad .

Talking about the European tour, he said ‘Well don’t go by the
results, we used this tour as a learning process. .It was like find
and fix exercise. Tried to find out what are our grey areas and what
are the things we need to do’

‘We used all the players in these matches(test series against Spain
and South Africa and in Tri series).Except South Africa, other teams
Spain and England are much higher ranked then us .The tour taught us
the importance of playing against strong teams.

During the tour ’We played on blue turf and let me tell you some
interesting facts, none of the teams we played in the tour could
convert most of the Penalty corners(including ourselves).The turf
though made by a same company with same colour played differently at
different places .Each turf has different character depending on the
climatic conditions. We could convert only three of the 33 penalty
corners’

‘In France we played on Green Turf which was fast while Blue turf
was slow and bouncy’ he said adding ‘I don’t know why this turf has
been introduced. I can only guess that Blue being the one of the
Olympic colour, they have introduced it.’

‘If only we are able to convert the chances that come our way, the
story will be different and I am not talking of half chances here.
This team has good attackers, our attack rate is superb but we still
lack good finishing and that is the big problem’

About Olympics, he said if you take out two teams Australia and
Germany (Number one and two), and in the remaining ten teams there
is not much of a difference. Mind you in these Games you have 12 best
hockey teams of the planet’

Asked to predict the outcome he candidly admitted’ no coach worth his
salt will be able to predict the result .that is beauty of the
sports. But I hope we finish somewhere in the middle of the pack,
anything better will be simply great.

Talking about the players he said ’Boys are fired up. I promise they
would give everything possible in the match. On that ground you will
have no complaints’