Livid Michael Nobbs blasts ‘inept’ team
For Nobbs, the loss wasn’t merely a reality check for the team. It was time to put the screws on errant players.
BANGALORE: Indian hockey coach Michael Nobbs is livid. The 5-1 rout that New Zealand handed to India in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup hockey tournament opener in Ipoh on Thursday has come as a rude shock to the Australian.
For him, the loss wasn’t merely a reality check for the team. It was time to put the screws on errant players.
Starting with an opportunistic strike in the opening minute, New Zealand, who are drawn in the same group as India at the London Olympics, ripped through a lacklustre defence to build a healthy margin.
Simon Child (1st), Andy Hayward (35th), Nick Wilson (58th), Stephen Jenness (61st) and Matt L’huillier (65th) scored for New Zealand, while India’s lone goal came through Shivendra Singh in the sixth minute. India also had their chances off penalty corners but failed to score. The defeat was reminiscent of India’s 3-7 loss to the Black Sticks in the same tournament last year.
“Well, where do we start? We were pathetic, everything we talked about and practised we decided to forget and go back to our old style of play,” thundered Nobbs when asked about the margin of defeat. The defence was awful. I have repeatedly asked my defenders to mark from the front. In the first minute of the game, Sandeep mis-trapped a 40m pass aimed at the forward and they scored. It went downhill from there. One minute from half-time, Rupinderpal made a silly tackle which he didn’t need to and they scored. 2-1 down at half-time,” he said.
Nobbs pointed out that India had planned to do a half court press but ended up with a fuller version against a team as well drilled as New Zealand.
“They got around it easily and we exposed ourselves to counter-attack. It didn’t help that our forwards suddenly decided not to come back and defend for the rest of the half. New Zealand had only seven shots (at the goal) in the game and scored five goals. A pathetic performance by us.”
The coach said there was a lot of hard work ahead.
“We are not that good yet. We have to accept responsibility for our performance and not look for excuses. This tour is also about selection for the Olympic team. We can only have 16 and performances here will certainly have a bearing on who goes and who doesn’t. If we are going to get a top six finish at the Olympics then we need a much better performance for the rest of this tour.”
Nobbs felt the turf was difficult to play on but was quick to point out that it was the same for all the teams.
Results:
Pakistan 4 (Mohammad Irfan 34, Sohail Abbas 50, Abdul Haseem Khan 65, Muhammad Waqas 69) bt Argentina 2 (Gonzalo Peillat 53, Mathias Paredes 62).
New Zealand 5 (Simon Child 1, Andy Hayward 35, Nick Wilson 58, Stephen Jenness 61, Matt L’huillier 65) bt India 1 (Shivendra Singh 6).
South Korea 1 (Seo Jong-Ho 7) drew with Malaysia 1 (Faizal Saari 56).