New Delhi: India's 10th-place finish at the Junior Hockey World Cup here has evoked a lot of criticism, but senior coach Terry Walsh says it is “time to identify the correct problems“ to help develop Indian hockey .
“May be we are looking in the wrong direction when we seek solutions,“ said Walsh, as he witnessed the juniors in action here.
“We are all focused on this particular tournament. And the reality is that tomorrow we will be focused on another event, and yet another one after that. But what are we doing about it?“ Walsh, who took over the senior national team two months ago, said the country needed a development programme to prosper in world hockey .
“My assessment, having been here a very short time, is that we need to collectively figure out a programme which develops our youth at a significantly higher level, which can match up to the other nations.“
For this, Walsh has identified three key areas: Educating coaches, tournament management and developing a player at the psychological and physiological levels.
“I think we have to develop our youngsters at a far higher level than what they are right now. They have to be able to cope with pressure, be able to match their opponents physiologically because skills cannot come into play until these components are in place. “You can put the nicest game plan together, but if your physiology and psychology falter, it is completely gone.” “We lacked quality performance. From my perspective, it was very disappointing but not uncommon in Indian hockey. That is the issue that we need to work on and get a solution moving on towards the future.
“In successful hockey playing nations, we see a lot of work being done on a player’s physiology and psychology from the age of eight to 18. And we have to fix it here.
“These problems have been surfacing and reoccurring for many, many years. And the solution does not lie in training a team or a group. These issues are addressed in the development programmes that don’t exist at this point of time.
We are aiming at a programme that brings collectively top players into the system.”
