India’s chief coach Craig Fulton lamented that they lacked firepower up front and their mock penalty corner drills failed to deliver as they suffered a 0-2 defeat to world champions Germany in the first hockey Test here on Wednesday.
Harmanpreet Singh and Co squandered as many as eight penalty corners, while the Olympic silver medalists struck twice inside 30 minutes to seize the momentum.
“We went on the mock today. There was Varun (Kumar) and Sanjay but you obviously want Harman (skipper Harmanpreet Singh) to score a few from penalty corners,” the South African said.
“I want to win badly, don’t like to lose but it is a different phase. It wasn’t too bad but there wasn’t much fire upfront.
“It’s always difficult when you are chasing a game because you need to get on to the ball, you need to dominate the press. We need to do that in the first half,” Fulton, who coached India to the Paris Olympics bronze medal, added.
The 49-year-old further said it is was not a complete performance from his side as they were always chasing the game after going down early.
“After going one behind we thought we will get equal but that didn’t happen. I think in the first 4-5 minutes we had really good play but then we made one mistake and then they scored,” he said.
“Then we got back in and had a good start but didn’t take in and made another mistake and they scored again.
“First quarter was theirs but second quarter was ours, third quarter was pretty even but we missed a few connections, we were not that fluid like we normally are,” he added.
Harmanpreet, who also missed a penalty stroke, said they decided to try out variations from penalty corners, but it didn’t work out as expected.
“We tried for variations. Definitely, we want to win every match but this is an opportunity to experiment because now the main target is the Pro League. If we do well in Pro League we will qualify directly for the World Cup,” he said.
“It is a good opportunity for youngsters and those who are making comebacks. We could have done well in penalty corners and counters as well.” Harmanpreet said India were not consistent on the field.
“Germany don’t have a full Olympic team but we’re familiar with the players. But every situation and moment matters. We were not consistent, so mistakes happened,” he said.
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