Lack of drag flickers concerning for Indian women’s hockey, says chief coach Schopman

Bhubaneswar, Feb 2 (PTI) The Indian women’s hockey team’s woeful penalty corner conversion rate is due to the lack of drag flickers in the side, according to chief coach Janneke Schopman, who stressed on the need to have a more effective talent development programme in the country.

Penalty corner conversion has been a thorn in the flesh for the Indian women’s team of late. The inability to convert was one of the reasons the side struggled at last month’s Olympic Qualifiers, eventually missing the bus for the Paris Games.

“We need potentially more depth in our penalty corner. That is a concern in women’s hockey in India,” Schopman said on the eve of India’s FIH Pro League match against China.

“If you look at any other country in the top 10, they have 5-6 drag flickers and we do not. So there’s work that needs to be happening in talent development.”

Schopman said while the team is still hurting after its shocking failure to qualify for the Olympics, it is time to look ahead and make the most of the opportunities the Pro League will provide.

“As a team we are hurting still, it has been a tough two weeks. We have done a lot of talking and thinking about what happened and why it happened. We want to show that we are a good team and we can play against good teams as well.

“We won’t get the Olympics back but we can only move forward and that is our plan here, to move forward, to play to our strengths, and to show that we can play well.”

Schopman said she was happy with the way the side played in the Olympic qualifier despite finishing fourth.

“The hockey they played there we created a lot of opportunities to score goals but we didn’t (score). I believe we can play dominating hockey. We want to be a good team here and we want to score goals.

“In the last the six months, in the Asian Games, I wasn’t happy with our team performance there, I was happy with the performance at the Olympic qualifiers.”

Schopman rued the lack of fixtures last year.

“I have said this before… unfortunately, in the last year we haven’t played very many matches that mattered to be completely honest. We were not in the Pro League. From January to September we maybe played four official matches. In Pro League you play 16.”

India will take on reigning Asian Games Champions China in their first game, followed by a clash with the Netherlands on Sunday. They will face off against Australia on February 7 before playing their last game in Bhubaneswar against the United States on February 9.

“In the Pro League we have the opportunity to see how we fare against some of the best teams in the world, like the Netherlands and Australia, the exciting thing is that we are up against these teams and they are not practice matches, it is hugely important for them before the Olympics and it will be great to take them on.”

“I think we can score goals and defend well but we are facing good teams and it will be interesting to see how it unfolds.”