Times of India: Need more games: Indian women’s hockey coach

NEW DELHI: The Indian women’s hockey team has not yet officially qualified for the Rio Olympics, but their coach Mathias Ahrens is already planning for the Games. The 51-year-old German is confident that his team will make the grade.

“We are on a very safe side and I can assume that we have qualified. The equation which can rule us out is very complicated and difficult to explain. I would just say that we are 99% qualified,” a confident Ahrens said.

Mathias believes that as the time for official announcement is approaching, the girls are getting more confident and have started to believe in themselves.

“There is a big boost in the on-field confidence. You can see from their attitude that we deserve to be there. All we need now is more games to prepare better. The men’s team’s schedule has been finalised but for the women we need to work on the dates,” he said. The coach is confident that his girls can compete at the top level. “There are some areas where Australia and New Zealand are better than us but at the same time we have better in certain areas,” he pointed out.

What is worrying Ahrens though, is the series of illness plaguing some junior players which has affected the team’s preparations for the Junior Women’s Asia Cup to be held in Changzhou, China from September 513. The team has been training in the absence of 4-5 key players, including skipper Rani Rampal who has been away owing to college exams.

“No I am not happy with the training. This is a big drawback and we are really far behind. We still have three players to come back to training. Even though they are on the path to recovery, their staying 10 days away from training is a big loss,” he said. A total of 33 players, including seniors and juniors, were part of the coaching camp. “We have the juniors training for the Asia Cup and the focus of the seniors is very much on technical and athletic development” he said.

Navjyot calls for women’s league

The vice captain of the junior team, Navjyot Kaur, said the team was working on fitness ahead of the tournament. “We need to be on top of our fitness. We have 13 players from the senior team and we want to make the finals to qualify for the World junior championship,” she said. The lanky midfielder also stressed on the need for a hockey league for women. “We want to perform well in Rio and live up to the expectations of fans. We hope the level of women’s hockey will improve and in future we can have leagues like the men have,” Navjyot said.