‘India need to go back to old style’

National hockey coach Michael Nobbs on Monday revealed that his first priority would be to rid the Indians of the European style of play, quickly adding that the task was going to be a difficult one.

After dilly-dallying for a long while on whether to stick to their famous brand of attacking hockey, the Indians finally embraced the workaholic European formula under Spanish coach Jose Brasa, sacrificing flair and panache and drawing a lot of flak from critics.

“You can see it,” gushed Nobbs after the National team beat Army XI 4-2 in a practice match at the MEG?ground. “It’s going to be hard for the Indians to sustain this approach because European teams defend from behind. Their man-to-man marking is meticulous. We still have many of them playing the Brasa way.

“That is not wrong, but that is the way they play. Some others play the Indian and Australian style which is different, so the two systems are not gelling yet. It’s been just five weeks since I took charge. It will take a bit of time before they begin to play the old Indian way. The key to success is practice. The more we practice, the more we’ll perfect the art. I would say we need at least 18-20 matches before we start gelling as a team.”

While the Indians sparkled in parts with their individual play in the practice match, they committed a lot of schoolboy errors in midfield, surrendering possession on a host of occasions that allowed Army XI to attack on the counter. While they were punished just twice by club side Army XI, international teams could have hurt India more, which has been the case more often than not.

However, Nobbs chose not to read too much into it, blaming it on the taxing training session they had earlier in the day. “Remember, they are playing in tiring conditions. They are doing heavy fitness sessions in the morning and playing a game in the afternoon. They are not playing under fresh conditions. Once again, if we can play well under fatigue, then it helps us completely.”

The coach stressed that he would dissuade players from passing the ball back and would appreciate them pushing forward and creating goal-scoring opportunities.