The Worldwide Hockey Federation’s (FIH) Coach of the 12 months has a blueprint for it: develop a ‘collective defensive mindset’ – which is basically to all the time have somebody on the hotline (the road between the ball provider and the purpose), mark the attackers ‘actually, actually shut’ and deal with easily; change into extra ‘efficient and polished’ within the scoring zone by decreasing large swings and smash hits; add a brand new, aggressive dimension to an already-aggressive urgent recreation; and, as a substitute of dashing with the ball, transfer it round patiently till a niche is noticed within the opposition protection.
All this appears an excessive amount of to attain in too little time. The brand new hockey season will get underway in three weeks – on October 28 – with the FIH Professional League, a event that’s a precursor to the World Cup which is a bit more than three months away. However Reid is satisfied it’s the one manner ahead for the Tokyo Olympics bronze medalists. “If we play properly and do the issues we’re good at, we’re a tough staff to beat,” the India head coach says.
These are, he provides, learnings from the current Commonwealth Video games. Extra particularly, after India had been blown to smithereens by Australia. Twice in 12 months, the Kookaburras pumped in seven objectives previous a hapless India – first on the Tokyo Olympics (7-1) after which on the Birmingham CWG (7-0).
The loss in Tokyo didn’t hassle Reid rather a lot, not again then and never now. “On the Olympics, we created fairly a little bit of alternatives. I didn’t assume there was an intimidation issue,” he says. In Birmingham, Reid felt that was the case. “Half nerves, half intimidation, half not fairly positive (what to do).”
It’s a mysterious sample as a result of India have proven the flexibility to go toe-to-toe in opposition to nearly each different staff on the planet. Since 2010, India have surrendered to Australia in 4 main finals, two every within the Champions Trophy and the CWG. The hammering on the 2022 CWG as soon as once more raised an uncomfortable query for the gamers: what was it in regards to the Australians that made them quiver on the mere sighting?
Reid, a former Australia worldwide, offers an instance from his taking part in days within the early Nineties when Germany had been the gold normal, profitable the 1992 Barcelona Olympics gold, the World Cup bronze in 1998 and 4 Champions Trophies. “We put Germany on a pedestal, ready an excessive amount of for them, constructed them up greater than what they really deserved. You don’t ever wish to try this.”
In India’s case, the issues are multi-faceted. Quickly after the CWG, when the nationwide camp reconvened in Bengaluru, the gamers and training workers performed a publish mortem of the Australia match. It wasn’t as thorough as Reid would’ve appreciated, however nonetheless sufficient to get an understanding of what was ailing the staff.
Aussie aura
Bhubaneswar: Australian gamers have fun after a purpose throughout a match in opposition to Eire (inexperienced) for Males’s Hockey World Cup 2018, in Bhubaneswar, Friday, Nov. 30, 2018. (PTI Picture/Ashok Bhaumik)
It’s a mixture of three issues, Reid says. The primary, he admits, is that ‘Australia continues to be a psychological block for some.’ “We have to recover from that.”
The second is the absence of the Hockey India League (HIL). “The benefit of the HIL was lots of the blokes performed with the Australian gamers in their very own groups so they’d a greater concept of how they play,” Reid says. That confidence translated on the pitch, the place India and Australia had been engaged in among the closest encounters in current occasions. With the HIL gone, the aura of invincibility across the Australian gamers appears to have returned from India’s viewpoint. And the third, Reid factors out, is the shortage of matches in opposition to Australia. After the pandemic struck, Australia minimize off all contact with the surface world, pulling out of the Professional League and barely taking part in a match earlier than the Tokyo Olympics.
“We skilled with the Germans, performed lots of video games in opposition to Argentina when all of it got here down, they felt assured and comfy,” Reid says.
The kind of nightmarish reminiscences of previous defeats in opposition to Australia meant that when the time got here, the gamers froze. “We simply didn’t put strain on them, which was our trademark in Europe in the course of the Professional League. We had been getting at Belgium, at Holland…”
Reid noticed that the Indian gamers would come inside three meters of the Australians after which maintain – ‘half nerves, half intimidation, half not fairly positive’, he repeats. “If you don’t put strain on a staff like Australia, they begin to dictate. They get their heads up, make passes and make it troublesome for our defenders. The longer somebody has the ball, the more durable it’s for defenders to defend.”
On the World Cup in January 2023, if India and Australia prime their respective swimming pools and win their quarterfinals, they’d meet one another within the semis. Reid isn’t pondering that far forward, but it surely’s amongst his priorities to verify the following time India meet Australia, the gamers aren’t intimidated, on the very least.
And so, he’ll take the staff to Adelaide subsequent month. It’ll be Reid’s first go to to his residence nation in additional than three years and it’ll be a busy homecoming for the 58-year-old. India and Australia will play 5 matches in opposition to one another, aside from just a few coaching classes with an area staff.
“The concept is to desensitise ourselves to them, to make ourselves perceive that we’re adequate to beat them once we play properly,” Reid says. “We’d like to verify our recreation is bulletproof.”