Sjoerd Marijne, India women’s hockey head coach, the greatest takeaway from the lost semi-final to Argentina on Wednesday was the reality of playing an Olympic semi-final.
“The girls had never played in one before. They only watched it on TV,” the Dutchman said.
Marijne put it down as a 50-50 match. The 2-1 score more or less confirmed his view but he admitted that Argentina had more of the ball and that reflected in more penalty corners in their favour.
“It’s important to make use of the chances and penalty corners that come your way when playing a top team like Argentina,” he said.
“It happened against Australia and it didn’t happen today.”
On lower levels of energy in the second and third quarters, Marijne attributed it to nerves. “You need freedom in running. Nerves can block you. Please look back and see what you have done wrong. That will help you in the next match,” Marijne explained his prescriptions to calm nerves for the next match.
“Yes, it was nerves in a match like this but that’s normal. It affected injection at PCs which went a little to the left and the failure to trap the ball cleanly,” he elaborated.
“They were lucky with the second goal with the ball being lifted to the knee before going in but this is beyond our control.”
Marijne conceded that the referral for dangerous play in the last minute was just the last throw of the dice. “Their goalkeeper played the ball into open space and I don’t think it was a penalty corner,” he explained.
Marijne said he was proud of his defence which didn’t give away much besides the PCs and as far as the overall performance went, he said his girls put in a lot of energy despite playing their seventh match in the suns (in about 11 days) with the least recovery time.
“This is no excuse but reality,” he clarified.
He dwelled on the high spots from the campaign. “We created things, we made good use of the high ball and we found the outlets,” he observed.
“In a high level match like this you need players to perform at 6-7 on a scale of 10. If that doesn’t happen, it’s difficult to reach the level we aim for.”
Marijne was particularly happy with the resolve shown by the team in the last session.
“I am very happy about how we gave everything in the fourth quarter. We pressed hard even though it is very difficult to create something against a team like Argentina. That’s their quality.
“We saw that with Carlos Retegui and the Argentina men at Rio 2016. High balls, good PCs and very strong defending.”
“Now what is important is to recover and go for the bronze medal. It’s not finished.
“We have lost in the past and we know how to deal with it. That can help us now. So now we are ready for GB,” he reasoned.
“It’s important that the girls look at where they can improve, learn from today’s experience and how they change things in the next match.”
Marijne threw light on the post-match chat with the team. “I told the girls you can be sad and disappointed. Often you don’t get another chance in life but we have got one more – to win a bronze medal.
“I reminded them that it’s easy to be friends when you are winning but if you lose you should not blame a teammate for not doing things well.
“My message to them is to stick together. We have that culture in our team but I reminded them once again,” Marijne said in conclusion.