The Hindu: London series was the ideal wake-up call : Hawgood
By Uthra Ganesan
Since qualifying for the Rio Olympics almost a year back, the Indian women’s hockey team has not had a great year in terms of results. In fact, barring the SAG, where the team had no competition, it has only managed a win against Canada in the entire period, losing to higher-ranked teams and even a lower-ranked Ireland.
The series whitewash against Great Britain earlier this month was the worst outing for the team in recent times, and coach Neil Hawgood, who returned to take charge of the team in October last year, admits it was by far the biggest learning experience for the side in the run up to Rio.
“This was the biggest test for the girls, more than the Hawkes Bay Cup in New Zealand (where India finished sixth out of eight teams).
“But there are two ways of looking at it – one would obviously be disappointment at the way we played, they all agree that they just weren’t good enough; and the second would be a realisation of how much the possibility of being selected for Olympics puts pressure on you. In that sense, it was a very steep learning curve,” Hawgood told The Hindu after the team’s return.
The squad travelled directly to Bengaluru for a conditioning camp before it leaves on another gruelling tour, this time to Australia, in 10 days – the team would face New Zealand and Japan, besides the host, playing four games in five days.
“They are learning to deal with it. The Australia tour would be the last one before the final selection for Rio and it would be interesting to see how the girls recover from the last tour, both physically and mentally, and refocus on the job at hand,” Hawgood added.
The Australian, however, is not worried about the team’s form.
“I had said earlier also that the Olympics is a new world that these girls know nothing about and the London tour only reinforces that fact. Qualifying for Olympics is just one step; the actual Games are something else.
“Great Britain was bronze-medallist at the 2012 edition, it has been at the Olympics regularly so it knows what it takes to push to the next level.
“The Indian men realise that because they have been there; these girls haven’t. The good thing is, it was the best wake-up call they could have got. They now know the work expected of them ahead,” the coach added.