FIH Men's Pro League

[jaydeep]

Jaydeep: how was the umpiring today? Some reports of poor decisions.

I think we are used to these some of the dodgy decisions against us, another way around would surprise us ...
But I was shocked by poor referral by Kothajit Singh in the early first-quarter when the ball hit to his foot clearly in the D and he objected for a given penalty corner ... That could have cost us this match as then we missed a few chances for referral due to unavailability ... But once again what a match played by Krishan Pathak and P. R. Sreejesh ...

[ssp]

3-2 loss despite much better stats than yesterday. More shots, PCs etc. Didn't get to watch the game, but reports indicate a mistake at the back by one of our best players, Harmanpreet gifted away the winner.
Pleasing to see us being so competitive against a really top team.

[srini]

Yes inspite of better stats (12 vs 9 shots at goal and 28-19 circle penetrations and almost matching Belgium in ball collection accuracy we lost it 2-3. Saw both yesterday and today match and actually felt we performed better today, we equalized twice almost looked like we were going to equalize thrid time as well. Yesterday Belgium were all over us and God knows how we defended so many times and allowed just one goal.

[jaydeep]

Yes, another exciting match against the Red Lions, we played well but this time the Belgium team was lucky ... Ramandeep Singh missed 2 sitters in front of the goal but still encouraging performance by our team against a current World Champion.

[sameerph]

So, despite the loss pretty good performance against world #1 team over the weekend.

We are now in second position in standings with 8 points from 4 matches behind Belgium who have 14 points from 6 matches. Next up against Australia on Feb 21-22 in Bhubaneswar too. Australia have 6 points from 4 matches.

[arjun2761]

Encouraging results continue for the Indian team despite this loss. We have won 2, tied 1, and lost 1 against #1 and #3 in the world in matches which count for ranking points (and our opponents have so far won all of their other matches). Yes, these matches have all been at home but we have shown that we are pretty competitive with them when visiting them last year.

Hopefully, this team will have the confidence to do well in the Olympics for which the FIH world league is really good preparation.

[sameerph]

We are playing Australia in the first match of double header today.

We were down 0-2 at half time with Australia looking much the better team.

We just got 1 back thru a goal on PC rebound. Still 1-2 down.

[sameerph]

Now down 1-3 down. Giving too much space to Australian forwards today.

And now 1-4.

[ssp]

Lost 4-3. We just can't cope with the Aussie press and speed. Was looking bad (or should I say, normal match situation v Australia) at 4-1, but decent comeback in last two quarters.
Stats were good overall, but Australia were too strong in first 2 quarters. Still, this is progress from us compared to last years matches in Australia. Let's save our best for the Olympics!!

[sameerph]

Haha.

True, our defense was just not able to keep pace with speedy Australian forwards in first half. Good fightback in second half. This new guy Rajkumar Pal looks good, scored 2 good opportunistic goals today.

Needs to something about closing down their forward line though if want to succeed in tomorrow's match.

[jaydeep]

We were looking a lot sharper in the final quarter ... We also need to work more on our defensive skills but definitely an improvement.

[ssp]

Couldn't watch it live, but just seen the replay.

Let's be honest, we were made to look pretty poor for the first 3 quarters by a really professional Australian team. We made things worse by reverting to our historical levels (pathetic) of marking and running at the back. So much space given away and any Aussie attack saw their forwards outnumber our guys in and around our circle. Loads of silly, unforced errors all over the pitch. Our forwards were totally ineffective. Not sure why Gursahibjit is in the squad. In contrast, each and every Aussie player has terrific skills, keeps running for the entire match and hardly make any silly errors in trapping or passing.

Umpiring was also at the usual level. Any aerial into a congested area was always an Australia ball, as were several fouls that looked to be our fouls.

The last quarter was frantic and 4-5 of our guys picked up their game and we very nearly got a result that we didn't deserve. Tomorrow could be a reversal of today's performance ....or a proper thrashing!

[srini]

At Half time India leads Aussies 2-1

[sameerph]

We are leading 2-1 at half time against Australia.

Better start today by us. Still Aus got 6 PC but have no goal to show for that while we are 2-3 in PC's. 1 goal each by Rupinder and Harmanpreet.

[srini]

Aussies equalize with a penalty corner but the goal was reverted in video referral.... As i type penalty stoke awarded to Aus.Whoooah and the Aussie player misses the stroke.we still lead 2-1