Defence an area of concern: Oltmans

Just when things seemed to be looking up for the Indian hockey team, it took a massive tumble with an abject display at last month’s World League Semifinal in London.

Barring the two massive wins against a beleaguered Pakistan, there was nothing of note from the Indian team that had packed in a good number of youngsters in a bid to groom them for the future.

The seniors, who were supposed to nurture the next generation, were shoddy for much of the campaign and the team finished a disappointing sixth, losing the classification match 2-3 to Canada. Add the 2-3 defeat to Malaysia in the group phase, it just shows the enormous work ahead of the team as it prepares for the Asia Cup in Dhaka in October and World League Final at Bhubaneswar in December.

Coach Roelant Oltmans, speaking to the media at SAI centre here on Friday following a training session, said defence, especially during counter-attacks, is still a major area of concern.

“I'm not satisfied with the final result. Our finishing was not up to the standard we wanted. Also, on the counter-attack, our counter-control from defence (was not good). W made a couple of mistakes in important games, especially against Malaysia and Canada. That cost us a better position.

“However, this was the best moment for it to happen. Because we have enough time to rectify it and discuss it with players, which we are doing daily. We will learn from this result. I call it a wake-up call. Everything went smoothly in the past 10 months or so and now we've had a setback. In one way I'm disappointed and on the other hand maybe it was the right moment to get that lesson.”

Oltmans felt one needs to give time for the juniors, who won the World Cup last December, to blend in with the seniors. “Let's not make the mistake of thinking that the boys who won the Junior World Cup in December 2016 can just walk into the senior side and be the senior world champions in two years' time. That's not how it works. It takes time and they need experience and that's one of the reasons we play against teams like Germany and Belgium.”

Off the field too, things were rocky for the team with former skipper Sardar Singh called for questioning by the UK police in connection with a year-old alleged sexual assault case during the tournament. Oltmans admitted it upset the team’s rhythm although he wouldn’t want to use it as an excuse. “What do you think will happen when a player has to travel for 11 hours by car, during the night to a police station, answer questions for a couple of hours and come back? Of course it has an effect, at least on the individual player.

And also all the players know about this whole affair. We try to take it away. We knew it would affect our match with Holland, since it was the next day. We were aware of that but after that we hoped the situation would close. But unfortunately she showed up everywhere every time, again.”