CHENNAI: Graham Reid is a relaxed man. If you had told him that India would be fourth in the Pro League standings after playing the world’s three best teams, he would have taken it. A couple of days after the 2-2 draw against Australia (India won 3-1 in shootout) in Bhubaneswar, the coach in an interview with this daily spoke about things that worked, the co-relation between doubt and belief in a team and the form of custodian PR Sreejesh.
Excerpts:

 

 On the main takeaway from the opening six games 

We showed we can mix it with the best teams. That’s an important step in building belief. We’ve received some feedback on the things that we’ve been working on (off the field) are working out (on the field). We had some good quarters of hockey but there were stretches where we weren’t as good. I’m pleased with the way we came back after going behind. That’s a good step as it helps build belief. 

 On whether the belief was lacking

when he joined When you’re not up there as much as you should be, you tend to lack that. I’ve a bit of history with Ric Charlesworth (Australian great). We used to talk how athletes need belief and doubt. You’re striving to be better, so if you’ve doubts, then you’re always working to become better. The other side of the equation is belief. If you don’t have enough belief, you can’t achieve what you want. If you’ve too much belief, then you’re dangerously close to arrogance/over-confidence. A healthy dose of belief and doubt pushes an athlete forward. We’ve been working hard the last four-five months and the boys have started to see some reward. To answer your question, I didn’t necessarily think it was lacking. But what happens is, if you’re not seeing the results, then it becomes an underlying thing. 

 On India’s recent trend of scoring early

 Within the first five minutes of most games, you’ll create 2-3 opportunities. If you can put those away, it makes the game a lot easier to win because you put scoreboard pressure, as it happened against the Dutch. Those sort of things can make a huge difference to the momentum of a game. Of course, it works the other way also. Other teams will also be looking to put pressure on us. 

 On homework before the next Pro League games (against Germany on April 25, 26)

If you’re looking at, say, the first game against Australia, we got the ball in the attacking third more times than them. But they got more circle penetrations, and, hence, more shots on goal. Our efficiency between getting the ball to the attacking 25 and converting those to shots on goal is something that we need to analyse, look at and work on. We need to improve that efficiency. We’re still giving up too many corners.

The good thing is we’ve a four-week camp where we can focus on our skills, we can never do too much work on those areas. So we’ll be focusing on areas like tackling, goal-shooting and corners. We’ve seen that some of the skills we’re working on is getting transferred to our games and we’ve another opportunity to work on them.  On Sreejesh’s form That’s what having three goalkeepers (Sreejesh, Suraj Karkera and Krishan Pathak) does. When they put pressure on each other, they drive themselves. It goes back to that belief-doubt thing. Sree has become better and that’s where Suraj and Krishan have done well. That’s the sort of competition for places you need in every position.

India may host Canada 
The World No 4 are in talks to play a couple of matches against Canada at home in April. “After Malaysia pulled out, we have asked Canada to see if there’s a possibility for them to come to India for a couple of games. Talks are ongoing,” Reid said. It’s likely that Bengaluru will host the games in early April.