All credit to young team: Indian hockey team coach Nobbs

Sep 14, 2011 - MANUJA VEERAPPA |

Bengaluru

Tags:

A little over two months ago when Australian Michael Nobbs took over as the Indian hockey team coach, he was welcomed with controversies.

Whether it was senior players’ walking out of the camp or Sandeep Singh and Sardara Singh pulling out of the Asian Champions Trophy at the last minute, quarrels were been a constant in the country’s hockey scenario.

Having taken along a raw combination for the inaugural Asian event, Nobbs will return to India with a winning squad on Tuesday morning.

While the triumph may not be entirely game-changing for Indian hockey, it surely is a head start for the Olympic qualifiers.

Speaking about the team’s performance in the final, Nobbs said, “We had a very poor first half. I think the boys were a little overawed playing in the final.

“In the second half, we settled down to our game plan and played much better. From six weeks training and a basically new team we really did perform above my expectations. That’s a credit to the youth of the team.”

The fact that the team signed off from the tournament without a loss was a huge plus for Nobbs. “I would say it was outstanding to come through without losing a match. Full credit to the boys’ enthusiasm, and skills.”

While Nobbs stressed on the overall team effort, when asked to pick the performers of the tournament, he said, “Gurbaj Singh, Sreejesh, Bharat Chetri (the two goalkeepers), Manjit Kullu and Ignace Tirkey were very good. But it would be really hard to really single any player out as they all played very well.”
Nobbs, who added that he was excited to begin his Indian hockey innings with a victory, believed the pressure was now going to be on the team.

“Of course there will be pressure, but the pressure is a good thing as we need to perform under pressure.”

The team will attend a Hockey India felicitation in New Delhi on Tuesday before heading to their respective homes.

They are expected to regroup at the SAI, South Centre for the national camp on September 22.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/95867" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-128fd54d034b1e923c1a05fed8b61ecc" value="form-128fd54d034b1e923c1a05fed8b61ecc" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85566618" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>