Australian coach for Indian hockey girls

NEW DELHI: The wait for a foreign coach for the Indian women’s team is finally over. Neil Hawgood, a former Australian striker and a member of the 1986 World Cup winning team, was named by Hockey India (HI) as the first foreign coach of the women’s team on Monday. Hawgood, who was a teammate of men’s coach Michael Nobbs in the 1988 Olympics, will take charge of the national team in Bhopal on Tuesday.

Minutes after being named as the coach, the 50-year-old said that he had identified the areas he wanted to work with the team in a bid to help it qualify for the 2014 World Cup. “I saw this team play in a tournament in Perth last year and I must say that I was impressed the way they were attacking. Attack is the team’s strength, so we need to work on other aspects of their game like defence. Fitness is another aspect where we need to work on,” he said here.

“If you are fit, you can make correct decisions and these two factors play big roles in deciding your fate in a match. I want to make these players believe that when they play top teams in the world, they can beat them,” said the former player who was the coach of the West Australian Institute of Sports (WAIS) for the last eight years.

To help Hawgood achieve this objective, HI secretary general Narinder Batra also named Ben Dascombe as exercise physiologist. The duo had worked together for two years at WAIS.

Asked about his goal as the new coach, Hawgood said : “For you success may mean winning a gold or a silver or a bronze. For me, it will mean ensuring that these players improve as a team. We will be striving to become the best team in Asia, which means we will be getting closer to being a threat on the world stage.”

Hawgood said he had spoken to Nobbs before taking over the responsibility. “I spoke to him about it last year and he asked if I was interested in it.”

Commenting on the appointment, Batra said that it was a step towards raising the bar of the women’s team. He also said that the current coach CR Kumar would continue to be with the team and report to the Australian. Batra said Hawgood has been appointed by Hockey India and he will come under the Sports Authority of India (SAI) after the Olympics. “SAI usually hires from Olympics to Olympics. We would like to have him till the 2016 Olympics.”