Overseeing India’s preparations for the upcoming FIH Junior World Cup, senior hockey team head coach Graham Reid called himself a “relationship coach”, only to put the “icing on the cake” for the team’s title defense. Is.
India, who won the previous edition of the Junior World Cup in Lucknow in 2016, will begin their campaign in Pool B, taking on France on the opening day here on November 24.
After clinching India’s historic Olympic bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics, Reid has teamed up with junior coach BJ Cariappa at SAI Bangalore before shifting base to Bhubaneswar.
“Now for me, it’s about putting the icing on the cake, trying to instill some of the values that we have in the senior team, those structures.
“It’s more of the icing on the cake than rebuilding anything,” Reid, who coached the senior team that won the historic bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics, said in a virtual media conference.
“To be honest, over the past month, I’ve definitely been a relationship coach… you know, it’s really important to have a (good) relationship with every player so that things come to the fore when the chips are down. ,
With the pandemic hit, the Colts have been robbed of any overseas tour, so the only preparation they had was to take on the senior team ahead of the Olympics.
“If you remember before going to Tokyo, they had a practice game against the senior boys which was valuable to both teams.”
Reid said the senior camp will now be shifted to Bhubaneswar within a week so that juniors can have more practice matches.
The 18-member junior team will be led by Vivek Sagar Prasad, who was a member of the bronze medal winning Olympic team.
Asked if there would be additional pressure, especially after his Tokyo achievement, the 57-year-old Australian great said: “I don’t think so. There’s a lot of pressure already.
“When you are the defending champion, there is already some extra pressure. But what people will understand is that it is a completely different team than it was four years ago.
“We have to make sure we trust each other’s preparation and that’s what we will do.”
The defending champions are in easy pool with France, Canada and Poland.
“I don’t like to talk about other teams because it comes back to bite you. No matter who you play with, you should always play good games. The tournament concludes on December 5.
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