Jalandhar, Oct 29 Indian men’s hockey team chief coach Craig Fulton was satisfied with his side’s performance in all the four quarters against China in the second match of the Asian Champions Trophy here on Thursday, saying it is a positive takeaway for the hosts going forward in the tournament.
India defeated a youthful China 5-2 to register their second consecutive win at the ACT. The hosts had earlier thrashed Bangladesh 13-0 in their tournament opener on Tuesday.
Ahead of the China match, Fulton had raised concerned about India’s showing after the change of ends.
“It’s just about us getting more consistency in all the quarters. It is a positive takeaway, and not just being good in two or three quarters,” Fulton said after the match.
“I thought the third quarter was our best quarter. And we played really well today. The third quarter was really good.
“We started to move the ball and we had a bit more tempo. At the same time, in the first quarter we got a good start. We scored against the run of play. And then, penalty corners were strong from us, and our defence was good on penalty corners,” he added.
The South African, however, lauded China for their efforts.
“But China is a good team. They defended well, ran hard and enjoyed the game. Maybe we could have scored a few more but it wasn’t to be,” Fulton said.
“I think there were six or seven new players from the Asian Games. The Chinese goalkeepers did well. I think it was a nice game.”
Fulton said India employed high press hockey, which resulted in a lot chances but they couldn’t utilise as per expectations.
“I think first off was to press high and put them under a lot of pressure, and try and turn them over. We created a lot but we didn’t take our chances in the D. I think we had like six or seven circle entries in the first seven minutes, and we didn’t get a PC, we didn’t get a goal shot. So we didn’t connect well enough up front,” he concluded.
India will take on Japan in their next round robin match on Friday.
(PTI News)
