In a big deal for Hockey India, it has hired renowned South African mental conditioning coach Paddy Upton to assist the men’s national team in their bid for the Paris Olympics. Upton, who helped India win the 2011 Cricket World Cup, will be part of the support staff for the country’s men’s hockey team in Paris. He was also present when the team won gold medals at the recent Asian Champions Cup and Asian Games. Indian men’s hockey team head coach Craig Fulton confirmed to PTI that Upton will participate in the Olympics with his guardian.
“We have Paddy Upton who will go to Australia (for the Test series) with us. We will use him wisely. He will definitely be with us for the Olympics,” when asked about the services of a mental conditioning coach Fulton said.
Fulton, also a South African, believes that India, ranked fourth in the world, still have to reach their peak and there is a lot of ground to cover in the coming months.
“We’re not done yet, but within four to five months of the Olympics we will be there.
“Ideally any team that performs well would want to win any game. That’s the ideal goal realistically. But realistically we’re fourth in the world right now, does that mean there’s ‘no’ podium for now” , but that’s the beauty of hockey,” he said.
“Actually, we haven’t reached that goal yet, but we still have time.” The coach said that the Indian team is currently in a development stage.
“Our team is in a development phase. We are trying to create some depth at different positions. It’s important to do that now because it’s really important in key games in the Olympics,” he said.
Talking about India’s recent home campaign in the FIH Pro League, Fulton said he was neither satisfied nor disappointed.
“If you look at the four games – two against the Netherlands and two against Australia – I think we were disappointed in the second game against Australia where we were 2-1 up with five minutes left and then we committed Made a mistake, got punished and then we lost the penalty shootout,” he said.
“The first game was strange, we learned a lot tactically but we were 2-0 down after 90 seconds.
“But in the Dutch team’s game I think we were very well organized. But 2-2 I think is a fair result for both games. They are the league leaders and they are the team that needs to be chased at the moment.” Faure Don is in no mood to make any major changes to the style of play and says the upcoming tour of Australia will be huge for the team.
“Now we will train in Bhubaneswar for the next three weeks and then we will go to Australia to play five Test matches, which is very important, and then we come back to Bengaluru and after the selection is complete, we will go to the Pro League.
“We just keep training and our focus is to be very strong defensively and we need to improve our offense. We’re not going to make too many changes, just focus on getting better and consistent,” he said.
The Indian team is scheduled to travel to Australia for a five-match Test series in Perth from April 2 to 15.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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