The Indian men’s hockey team wants to put behind the recent World Cup disappointment and turn the learning into action in its bid to defend its Asian Games title and directly qualify for 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, chief coach Craig Fulton said.
India had a challenging World Cup campaign in Netherlands and Belgium, where they finished a disappointing eighth, and Fulton’s sole focus now is on regrouping the side and defend its Asian Games crown.
The Harmanpreet Singh-led side is busy in fine-tuning its preparations ahead of Sunday’s Pool A opener against Indonesia.
“(Regarding) what happened during the World Cup, we have identified what we need to focus on more coming into this tournament (Asian Games). We’re able to go straight into it and focus on those
improvements and then do it as a team,” Fulton said.
“These are lessons, and the only way to treat them as lessons learned is to turn that learning into action. That’s what we’ve got to do now.
“We’ve discussed everything, gone through everything and highlighted areas needing improvement. At the same time, it’s now about action after all the training we’re doing as we line up for our first game on Sunday,” he added.
India are clubbed alongside Indonesia, hosts Japan, South Korea, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in Pool A while Pool B consists of Pakistan, Malaysia, China, Oman, Uzbekistan and Thailand.
Placed eighth, India are the highest ranked side and will start the Games as favourites but Fulton is not taking any opponent lightly.
“All respect to whoever we play. The only way to truly respect the opposition is by giving 100 per cent. That’s what we’ve done, and that’s what we’ll continue to do in all the tournaments. So, you can expect the same, for sure,” the 51-year-old South African insisted.
The Aichi-Nagoya Games gives India a rare chance to create history by defending the gold medal. India has never won back-to-back titles since the start of the Asian Games in 1958.
But Fulton is not thinking on those lines and is focussed on taking one game at a time without disrespecting any Asian opponent, about whom they have good knowledge having played them in Asian Champions Trophy regularly.
“It’s still the Asian Games, but it’s just a totally different context because we had Asian Champions Trophy in India before we played the last Asian Games (in 2023). So, we had played all those Asian teams before we played the Asian Games.
“Now we’ve played the World Cup before the Asian Games. But it doesn’t really change anything. We take it as one game at a time, and we’ve got all our focus on ourselves, not really worrying about anyone else. We want to try and top our pool, and that is our first goal,” he said.
Before reaching Nagoya, the Indian team underwent a small team bonding camp in Mount Fuji after a tough World Cup, and Fulton believes the exercise will help in strengthening bond among the players.
“We didn’t have much time between the World Cup and the Asian Games, but we are really excited to get going again. I think starting it with a difficult but very, very enlightening experience where you go to a different part of the world (Mount Fuji) where we’ve not all been together before and experience something like that.
“It just helps the guys really focus on the team and not just the individual pursuit. That’s exactly what we’re trying to improve and enhance,” the coach said.
