Bengaluru, Apr 23: Bruised and battered after a total rout down- under, Hockey India Women is slowly getting into bass tracks ahead of the Rio Olympics and is looking forward to a series of international exposures before landing at South American destination. Training under the eagle eye of Chief Coach Neil Hawgood, the team probables would proceed to the United Kingdom next week for a four test series.
After their return for a week’s break, it would embark upon its Australian and Japanese sojourn and finally end up in the United States for three tests before the Olympics. Hawgood, talking to UNI at the Sports Authority of India, Southern campus here said, all these teams are in the same group in the Olympics and it will not only be a testing of performance, and also a chance to learn about tactics opposite teams adopt in the field.
Indian women are back into the Olympic arena after a gap of 36 years and are raring to show their might. Commenting on the debacle in the Kiwi land, Hagwood said, “ New Zealand was actually disappointing. But when you take out 450 international caps ( he was mentioning about the absence of Ritu behind, Anuradha with her hamstring problem, Sushila with her knee pain) it’s a little bit of a disruption to what we would normally take away.
Shaking his head, Mr Hawgood however, said, ‘’we did not actually play well enough’’. The only positive note was that the team was creating enough chances to score more goals than what it actually did. ‘’But yeah, Hawke’s Bay wasn’t good enough’’ he added. He further said that not having Jasprit (she’s been unavailable for the last three months because of a back injury) meant that the team do not have a drag flicker at the moment.
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