‘Good thing about a bubble is that it builds resilience’

Graham Reid is enjoying a rare moment of feeling content. Not only did the Indian men’s hockey team finally get to play some matches after a whole year, they managed to beat the reigning Olympic champions Argentina in their own backyard in successive Pro League games over the weekend.

In an interview, the Australian discusses how his team beat “Los Leones” (the lions), and the challenges ahead with three months to go for the Olympics. Excerpts:

You must be pleased with the wins against the Olympic champions?

We were lucky on Saturday but you make your own luck in sport. If you’d asked me beforehand if we’d be happy with five points coming away from playing such a good team I’d have to say yeah. I’d be very pleased.

India re-joined Pro League with last year’s momentum as if there was no Covid-19 break in the middle.

People don’t see all the hard work that goes in behind it all. It’s nice to know you can do something you spent a lot of time practicing, playing within yourselves. To come out and play a different opposition is refreshing and pleasing at the same time. I said to the team afterwards let’s not get carried away. It’s business as usual. We have lots of things to improve on. On Sunday in the first quarter we were a bit asleep. Apart from good goalkeeping we allowed us to stay down early on but I was very happy with the last three quarters. In the first match I was happy that we were able to comeback with patience, belief and skills—a really nice thing to have in your armoury.

What were your expectations and what factors helped beat Argentina?

We were probably lucky that we had a couple of practice games (vs Argentina) to get a bit of an idea of what to expect and where we needed to focus. We were lucky when we got here that they had played Germany (Argentina losing both games), so we were able to see a bit of that. Before we got here we saw videos but there were a few things we were unsure of. What we were sure of was that they are a very good team who can hurt you. Their skills are fantastic and to be exposed to those skills is very good. That’s the great thing about playing different teams, you can pick up

things that you need.

3 months from the Olympics, where are we placed?

There are lots of things that we need to get better at. The focus is still on our finishing in the circle, making more of our opportunities. We count the quality and number of opportunities that we and the other team gets and then we come up with a (comparative) score. What I’d like to see is more quality opportunities that we’re creating and vice-versa in defence. You want to try and reduce the amount of quality opportunities that they get. That’s what we’ll be spending time on. The thing we always do is press which I call “a living and breathing animal”. It changes and morphs as you come across different defences.

What’s it like being in a bubble right now?

We’re social animals so it is hard even wearing a mask all the time. It’s tough for young people to be kept inside. Here we’ve not been able to leave the hotel apart from when heading to the ground to train or play. It’s tough as a coach to impose restrictions in a beautiful city like Buenos Aires. We can only look at it from our windows. But it’s how you react. The good thing is it helps build resilience.