Ahrens Backs India To Do Well At The HWL In Belgium

Mathias Ahrens has just about five weeks to try and ensure the Indian women’s hockey team qualifies for the Rio Olympics and is keen to hit the ground running. His immediate target is to get the women into attack mode.

“This is a fantastic team from what I saw of them at the Hawkes Bay Cup and its strength clearly is defence. I was very surprised and my focus now will be to work on the attack,” Ahrens said in his first interaction with the media here on Thursday.

The 51-year-old German admitted it would be tough but was confident of causing an upset at the upcoming Hockey World League Round 3, which would also be the qualifying event for the 2016 Olympics.

“We have the best teams in the world, Australia and New Zealand, in our group. Belgium will be our big competitor and they will be playing a lot of games in the coming days. But we will go out and give them a very hard and fair challenge and I am confident we can produce a small wonder and go forward,” Ahrens said.

Only Korea has qualified so far by virtue of winning the Incheon Asian Games and Ahrens felt it was not impossible for India to make the grade.

The Indian women’s team has participated only once at the Olympics — 1980, when it was first included.

Early wins must

“We have to win our first three games to reach the semifinals. If you see the recent tournament in Hastings, scoring is an issue. Theoretically, there are 11 spots up for grabs since Brazil has failed to fulfill FIH conditions for automatic qualifications. The girls are keen and hungry for success, the team dynamics are good, they have responded incredibly well and I am happy,” Ahrens said.

A concern

However, organisational issues are a concern, though Ahrens refrained from saying so.

The team is without a full-time doctor and trainer. Ahrens said Matthew Eyles, currently with the men’s team in Bhubaneswar, would double up on return and that getting a doctor in Delhi won’t be difficult if needed but what he left unsaid was the clearly secondary importance being accorded to the women’s team despite

Hockey India’s repeated assertions to the contrary.

What he did express dissatisfaction about was the absence of players from training for various promotional events.

While a large number had to attend a Railways felicitation function on Wednesday, captain Ritu Rani and Rani Rampal had to miss training on Thursday for another promotional event. “As a coach, I am not happy giving players away for receptions etc. Everything else, including the weather, is a lesser problem,” he insisted.