PC defence India’s biggest concern: Adrian D’Souza Premium

Former Indian Olympians Rupinderpal Singh and Adrian D’Souza mentor young players, emphasizing penalty corner defense and teamwork for Paris Olympics.

Former Indian goalkeeper Adrian D’Souza watches intently as a young goalkeeper takes a sprint from the place where a custodian takes guard to the area where the penalty corner specialist takes his or her shot.

On the other side of the artificial turf at the SDAT-Mayor Radhakrishnan Stadium here in Chennai, former India defender, a penalty corner specialist, and a key member of the team that won the bronze medal in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, is busy taking a video of a player unleashing a drag flick. Then, he gets busy talking to the young players on the nuances of drag flicks. For over an hour, the two Olympians, Rupinderpal Singh (2021 Tokyo) and Adrian (2004 Athens) get occupied, discussing with the young players, all aged under-19 years, the technique and strategy involved in taking penalty corners and the art of goalkeeping respectively.

“It is a unique and novel initiative by Hockey India. A coaching camp like this has not happened before,” gushed Adrian even as Rupinderpal said: “We want the players to have the right technique and we are eager to groom players who show bright potential.”

Of course, things have been not so bright for the Indian men’s team especially with Paris Olympics nearing. In a disastrous outing in Australia, India lost all the five Test matches in Perth. The team’s performance reflected the Murphy’s law, “Whatever has gone wrong will go wrong.”

Rupinderpal and Adrian weren’t unduly worried about the team’s drubbing in Australia. Rather, they felt it will force the team into a huddle and the players will come up with a better performance in the forthcoming FIH Pro League in Europe and the Paris Olympics.

Rupinderpal is of the firm opinion that the team has to focus more on penalty corner defence and score more field goals. The 33-year-old, with 223 International caps, explained the lessons learnt in the failed Test series against Australia.

“Test games are always taken as preparation before the bigger tournaments. So, I think I’m sure they have taken those games in that mentality only. But, of course in those Test games, they have tried many things including trying various combinations. They were new faces as well. I think the head coach (Craig Fulton) has given opportunity to new faces, too. In that way, I think it is a plus point that they have got five games against Australia before the Pro-League and the Olympics. And I think they just need to improve on defensive structure, especially penalty corner defence because they have conceded around seven goals during penalty corner defence; it‘s an area they need to improve. At the same time, they need to work on scoring some field goals as well.”