A few minutes after Indian women boxer Lovlina Borgohain assures India of another Olympic medal by booking a place in the Welterweight Semis, Indian women’s hockey team too gave moments of joy. Rani Rampal’s outfit showed enormous energy and character to beat the last World Cup finalists Ireland 1-0, the goal coming through Navneet Kaur’s deflection off Rani Rampal’s strong forehand shot in the 37th minute. The goal came as a relief the much marauding Indian team — but who showed mediocrity in the process of converting penalty corners — just three minutes before the hooter.
With 12 points, both Netherlands and Germany have booked their QF from Pool A. Great Britain has six points, 3 ahead of Ireland and India. GBR has to score a point over Ireland to ensure their smooth passage. An outright victory for GB will pave way for India of their QF chance if India would simultaneously post victory over South Africa. In the event of Ireland defeating GBR in the evening, and India too collecting three points (in the morning), goal difference will come into play.
India’s low scoring match today will haunt them tomorrow.
India dominated the proceedings from the word go, even earning an average of five penalty corners in each of the first three quarters. However, the rival goalie Ayeisha McFerran was not to be beaten. Indian forwards Lalremsiami, Vandana Katariya, Navjot Kaur and others tore apart the Ireland defence consisting of Elena Tice and Hannah Mathews.
Neha Goyal in the centre played her heart throughout the match, so also deep defender Deep Grace Ekka. The team revolved around these two stalwarts, and was always looked scoring.
Gurjit Kaur, whom the coach Sojerd Marinje considers the world’s best even after the match in the post match brief, Rani Rampal and Deep Grace Ekka were weak in the department.
Deep Grace Ekka, who had hits as her weapon, and Rani with the same weapon, failed to score after Gurjit Kaur consistently missed in the early parts.
“We had been practicing penalty corners over last four years. There is no shortcoming here. Thing is that here every team has a good penalty corner defence. They are good” said Marinje.
Rani’s reply to the same question as to what went wrong in the penalty corner department, she was routine: “We will study today and analyse'”.
However, she added the rival goalkeeper was simply superb
It seemed to be a familiar tale all over again. India forced 14 penalty corners without success and dominated circle entries by far.
The Irish, who needed just a draw to progress, were content to lie back and defend.
This Indian team has shown far improved fitness and strength that its predecessors and, adding determination to the mix, head coach Sjoerd Marijne’s tutelage appears to have brought much desired results.
However, they have been late in coming in this tournament. India went into the match having lost all three matches they played against The Netherlands (1-5), Germany (0-2) and Great Britain (1-4).
On the day, the chances flowed and Navneet Kaur, in particular, would rue two gilt-edged opportunities. One struck the upright during a penalty corner in the third quarter. Another in the third quarter from open play from Lalremsiami’s pass when Ayeisha McFerran, the star Irish goalkeeper 2018 World Cup fame, narrowed the angle in a one-on-one.
Indian ladies will rue they did not score enough today. India had 12 shots at goals more than Ireland’s 6, and had 11 PCs more than their rival, and the circle penetration was double (30 to 15).
Yet it was left to veteran Rani to do the lone goal, though the scorer name will be Navneet Kaur, who had a disastrous match otherwise.
Rani Rampal unleashed her patented reverse hand hand shot even amidst a host of defenders from the right-top edge of the circle which was deflected in to the goal at the far end by Navneet, who was very close to the cage.