S2H Team

India’s head coach Graham Reid was pleased as punch after the win over Argentina which took his team into the quarterfinals of the Olympic hockey competition.

“I’m proud of the boys,” said the Australian. “Our game plan was good but we couldn’t put away goals in the first half and I spoke to the boys at halftime, telling them not to get frustrated. Good teams don’t,” the Australian said.

“But, it isn’t what you say at halftime alone that counts. It’s all that was said in Bangalore for two years now… the messages, the test event we had here. Everything.

“We’re getting better with all the psychology things and very basic work. We hope that little words at halftime trigger an image in players’ minds but habits take a while…”

Reid looked to the immediate future: “We must keep improving. We’ve not had the ideal prep. The Europeans have had the Euros, Australia played New Zealand recently. We haven’t, so our learning has had to be accelerated and we’ve been trying to develop a signature for our play for some time now,” he said.

Varun Kumar (jersey No.22) gives India the much-needed lead                                         Photo: Seshadri Sukumar

Among the strategies to be worked upon was the idea of spacing in the circle, Reid, a silver medallist at Barcelona 1992 and coach of the Kookaburras at Rio five years ago, said.

“We need to space ourselves well in the opponents’ circle for either scoring options or forcing penalty corners,” he revealed.

“If we are all crushed up, it’s gone. We got it going in the second half and after we forced the first penalty corner in the match only in the 41^st minute, seven more followed.”

An Indian attack building up in the Argentinean circle                                            Photo: Seshadri Sukumar

Reid also affirmed that his team didn’t go into the match planning for the quarterfinals. “Being an Australian, I did not take anything for granted and we wanted a win when it was still in our hands rather than go into the last match with things uncertain,” he affirmed.

“We will take a look at our performance today closely. We will still want to tweak a thing or two. Our strategies worked for us today and that’s pleasing.”

On his team’s impressive comeback after a mauling by his compatriots, Reid said, “We adopted a scoring system to take in opportunities during that match. It was 53-46 in favour of Australia and that didn’t make for the 7-1 scoreline. If we were to play each other again, on the basis of the opportunity count it could even have been 3-2 or 3-3. As a matter of fact, we had better numbers against Australia than against Spain (a match India won 3-0).”

Reid also touched upon pertinent issues away from the pitch. “Checking social media, I’ve told the boys, should be kept to a minimum. It brings on added pressure and we’ve seen it’s an issue with other sports.

“It’s absolutely important to stay mentally fit which is important to being calm and thinking under pressure,” he added.

Reid expressed sadness on the absence of spectators at the beautiful Oi stadium as he signed off, Japan match in mind on the morrow.