ACT 2016 M: Indian players take on Korea and final today

RAMANDEEP SINGH:

We fought back well. We dominated the second half. They were only defending. Here, it becomes difficult to score. We could not score in time, that led to pressure. We were down and then came back. This is exactly our training, how to come out of lean patches and when down. We practice regularly for shoot out, and it worked for us today. Our seniors in the team too doing well. Supporting us….yes.. we tried hard for getting penalty corners, but facing tough defnense it became difficult. We have been working hard for so long, we should be able to gift nation this crown on diwali day.

DEVINDER WALMIKI :

Its is important game, we know we need to win. We stick to the game plan the coach has devised for us. We dominated. We missed equally. If one looks at the first, third and fourth quarters we were on top on every count, we were pressing hard, always up with moves. In Asia we are the top team, korea was not a tough team though we drew them twice here. In every department we were better. Only thing was we could not score, its not that our forwards did not try, they did their best, but today it did not work out that’s all. We will go for goals tomorrow . For tomorrow, we have to win, go home with trophy. More so because, we have since some time did not win any major title. It was two years ago at Asian Games. Success here will be our gift to our soldiers.

PARDEEP MOR:

We really played well today, and had difficulty only in the second quarter. They were totally defensive, and were using flanks well. Coach advised us to block their flank moves, and we were successful there too. Over all forwards also played well, but there were some mistakes, we will overcome those in the final and bring smiles.

NIKKIN THIMMAIAH:

We had a good game. Sardar Singh played brilliantly. We missed goals, yes, unfortunately I too missed one. Its that we could not execute the coach’s plan, we did so in the first quarter, but could not get goals. We should have taken lead in the first quarter. Its pretty hard to score against defensive teams. We are improving day by day.