The Tribune: Women’s hockey takes a hit as strategy coach exits

Sabi Hussain
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 1

In a big setback to the Indian women’s hockey team, Mathias Ahrens has resigned as the strategy coach of the team “on personal grounds”, just five months before the Rio Olympics.

Ahrens, who joined the team in May last year, ahead of the World League semifinals, tendered his resignation to Hockey India (HI) chief Narinder Batra last week. “Ahrens has resigned due to some family reasons. He did not want to continue. We have already identified his replacement,” Batra said. While Batra wouldn’t disclose the actual reason behind Ahrens leaving the team, it has been learnt from knowledgeable sources that the Canadian was not comfortable working under chief coach Andrew Neil Hawgood.

Ahrens was originally appointed as the head coach of the women’s team last year, six months after Hawgood had abruptly resigned as the chief coach in November 2014 without giving any specific reason. After Hawgood left, HI had roped in New Zealand’s Anthony Thornton in January 2015. But Thornton failed to turn up to take up his duties, which left the women’s team without a head coach for close to six months before Ahrens arrived.

It turned out that Hawgood had joined as a consultant with the Malaysian Hockey Confederation, overseeing the progress of their men’s national team. But, in an interesting turn of events, the 53-year-old former Australian player returned to India as an assistant coach on October 28. His mandate was to help Ahrens in building strategies for the women’s team in the run-up to the Rio Games.

However, three days after he joined, HI appointed Hawgood as the chief coach while demoting Ahrens as strategy coach after a discussion with the players. Batra had then informed that the players had been finding it difficult to adjust to the coaching style of Ahrens, and also that the decision had not been forced upon on Ahrens.

But, just three months after his role was considerably scaled down by HI, Ahrens has bid adieu to Indian hockey. The Canadian, whose contract was to run until December 2016, has left at a crucial juncture when the team’s preparation for the Olympics is in full swing. Expectations have been raised because of the hype created last year when the women’s team qualified to play in the Olympics for the first time since 1980. The team is slated to play a number of friendlies in the coming months against top-ranked nations such as Australia, New Zealand, Germany and the USA.
HI would rope in a new strategy coach, but experts believe that the change can prove to be disruptive as the new coach would bring in his own methods, which would be different from those of Ahrens.

Australia’s David Ian Bell is likely to replace Ahrens. Bell, a former hockey player, was part of the silver medal-winning team at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.