2010 Women's Hockey World Cup, Rosario, Argentina

[jayakris]

So glad for te ladies. They have at least somethuing to be happy about. Good that they did not just give up after the three hard losses, albeit against top teams... Keep it up. Jay

[ssp]

Good result today. Very pleasing to see us keep a clean sheet and we played much better.

We looked reasonable because Japan were very poor. Our weaknesses were not punished. Our left sided defender Kirandeep was guilty of giving away loads of space and tackling rashly (gave away 2 PCs). There were a couple of soft PCs given away by sloppy trapping in our D when under no pressure. Some silly green cards too for not retreating 5m etc...and almost every 16yd free hit from our D was simply whacked straight to an opposition stick. That is so annoying. What is the useless coach doing about this? It is so easy to slap hit the ball back and across and keep possession, but we never, ever do this.

Rani Rampal was excellent as was Jasjeet. Dipika had a good game in goal too. The umpiring was fair and this made our task a lot easier.

A good result against NZ could see us finish 4th in the group and that would be a great effort.

[akmohanty]

our midfield and forward line have been largely okay. surinder, the captain, did very well as a play maker in the mid-field. supporting her well were rani rampal, saba anjum and deepika thakur.

however, as ssp was saying and i have noted in previous matches, our main weak link has been the inept defence. they do not trap and clear convincingly. too many balls given straight back to the opposition and penalty corners conceded.

anyways, let's hope they do well against NZ and come 4th in the group.

[jaydeep]

Well done ladies ... Really pleasing performance after tough previous losses ... Nice to see our ladies adopted playing condition better than Japanese team.

Japan lacked fighting spirit and running power against India, according to Japan coach Zenjiro Yasuda.

"We could not adapt to the change in temperature from the freezing cold on Friday against New Zealand to today's relatively hot weather and meant we could not run a lot today," Yasuda said.

Netherlands booked semi-final place from Group A after hard fought victory over Germans ... Other semi-finalist will be decided after last match between Germany and Australia.

Netherlands bt Germany 2-1
Australia bt New Zealand 4-1

[ssp]

NZ were unlucky to lose 4-1 to Australia. Until they went down to 10 players (due to a harsh yellow card) they were as good as the Aussies. They made some silly errors at the back and Australia got a couple of lucky loose balls in front of goal.

We only need a draw to take 4th place in the group. Our biggest worries will be the pace of the NZ forwards and the umpiring!

[akmohanty]

i think the excuse of the Japanese coach about temperature and running is just a lame excuse to take credit away from the Indians. The only area where Japan was head and shoulders above us even in yesterday's game was the running. In all other areas, our players were better yesterday.

Running remains an area our players need to improve big time if they have to make waves further up. i would say one of the big reasons for our losses was the lack of speed.

[jaydeep]

Watched match, again we lost match due to poor marking and stamina in second half.

New Zeland were looking more dangerous on the field but our ladies managed to hold them initially ... At half-time scored was 0-0 ... In second half New Zealand increased their attacks and counter-attacks ... They scored 3 goals in 10-odd minutes to take match in their favor ... First goal was due to mistake from our goal-keeper Dipika as reverse-flick from Sharland went through between her legs but next was good interception near goal by Katie Glynn and last goal scored on penalty-corner by Kayla Marie Sharland ... Dipika also had some very good saves in first-half.

Group A

India l New Zealand 0-3

[akmohanty]

India lost to 0-3 NZ today. the worst performance i have seen so far from them.

very bad defending as usual: no marking, dribbling inside one's own D instead of clearing the ball, inevitably giving possession back to the opposition close to the D (this is what opened the floodgates, in fact).

some players such as deepika thakur and jasjeet, and even surinder, were off-colour compared to the game against Japan. the few chances we got weren't capitalised upon. there was one particular chance where rani showed exceptional dribbling skills to make it all way to an open goal but instead of passing it onto her teammate she went for glory and hit the ball out. this was when the score was 0-0. wonder what would have been the scenario had it been converted.

In general, whenever an Indian player had possession, there were NZ players surrounding her and leaving her with the option of either tackling her way out of all of them (almost impossible most times) or to give the ball an aimless whack. much of this issue, in my eyes, comes down to strategy of course, but equally important is the difference in speed of the players. major area to work upon if they have to improve their position.

so, with their matches complete, India have 3 pts and are currently 5th. in all probability, they will finish that way unless Japan manages to beat Netherlands in the next match and pushes them to the last position. one would say improbable, but it is worth noting from the Standings that Dutch still top the group even if they lose, due to their superior goal difference compared to either Ger or Aus.

finishing fifth will mean we play South Africa, a repeat of the last World Cup, except that this time they will be playing for the 9th-10th places, a marginal improvement. i hope they have atleast gained the necessary experience for the CWG and the Asian Games through these matches. btw, with Aus and NZ beating us so convincingly and Eng making it to the SFs in the other group, our chances of getting a medal in the CWG look bleak.

P.S.: i do not think, atleast in this match, there was any bias against us inspite of a "gori" team playing. we did have some green and yellow cards shown (in fact, it was during one of them that the 1st goal was scored) but so did they. one of their goals was also rightly disallowed in the first half. all in all very balanced and fair in my book.

[ssp]

Bad defeat against NZ. Can't really complain as we were not good enough. Pathetic marking, lack of stamina & speed were always going to let us down.
Our lack of strategy is embarrassing. Every 16 yd hit from our D is GUARANTEED to result in possession given away in a blink. If the coach is an idiot- surely the players should realise that a stupid whack is pointless. Just fri**ing shit. Some of our players are so weak. What the hell does Saba Anjum do in any match? Loses the ball & gets green or yellow carded. Kirandeep is a liability in defence. We play at such a slow pace that we are never going to dominate the opposition.

We will not get a medal at the CWG on this showing as there are 4 teams better than us in that competition- Australia, England, NZ and RSA. In my opinion, RSA are not a bad team. All the teams here have much better speed and structure. All the players can slap hit at pace and protect the ball and are , of course pretty quick. The defend as a team- ie channel attackers wide or double up to make it difficult/impossible for an attacker to dribble past- yet our defenders are often 1 v1 against an opposing forward as we can't defend collectively- this down to the utterly useless coaching.

We can't expect miracles when there is such an appalling mess in the domestic hockey scene. When do these girls actually play competitive hockey? Only when they go on tours or in tournaments. We failed to build on the successes of the CWG in 2002 & 2006. We could beat the likes of NZ, RSA and even England. All these teams have left us miles behind.

[jaydeep]

After Japan's loss we r playing for 9th place against South Africa on Friday.

Germany joined Netherlands in semis from Group A after beating Australia in last group match.

Netherlands bt Japan 5-2
Germany bt Australia 1-0

[ssp]

India finished 9th after a 4-3 win against RSA.

Pretty poor match with lots of errors from both sides.Both teams looked very tired. RSA had more possession and circle penetrations but we got more PCs. Some awful play from India- absolutely maddening hits from our 16yd every time. Chanchan, Saba, Kirandeep were always losing the ball. On this evidence we are not going to get a medal or may not even get to the semis at the CWG. 9th is better than 2006, but I feel our game has regressed since then. In 2006 we gave the Dutch a fright before losing 3-2 & actually led Germany 2-1 with about 15 mins to go. The turning point was that awful incident in the game against England, when an Indian goal was removed during half time!!

We need a coach who has some common sense- but that is impossible in India. After the Asian Games, even the men will have some buffoon like this Somesh chap.

[jayakris]

Considering our seeding in the tournament, a 9th place finish with a couple of wins is actually better than we could have expected. But yes, we seem to have certainly regressed a bit in the last few years...

Jay

[akmohanty]

yes, the match was largely scrappy from both sides and we were lucky to get away with the win as there was an equalising goal disallowed for the South Africans in the dying minutes due to the final touch being above the shoulder. Indians successfully appealed on it, even though it did seem that since the ball had gone up due to the deflection from an Indian stick, it should have been a penatly corner. That is what the South Africans argued after being disallowed the goal but the Umpire ruled that she had already given 'advantage' by letting play go on once she saw the ball had gone to a South African player. A bit of grey probably, but these things happen and for once it was in India's favour.

Overall, i think one should be satisfied with two wins and a 9th position, given all the chaos that's been around them lately. Yes, there are obvious weaknesses but it would be unfair to place all blame on a coach who has taken over full charge only a month back, that too amid all the controversy. In this game atleast, i could clearly hear sandeep somesh shouting 'ball ko baahar nikalo' and 'man-to-man marking karo' whenever the ball was close to our defending D(should have been 'woman-to-woman marking' or concealed by saying in Hindi as 'aurat-ko-aurat peecha karo' ). Seems our feedback is finally getting heard upon .

Having seen all the matches, i am not overly disappointed. if some of the above weaknesses are worked upon and speed/stamina improved, i think this team has the skills to go up in rankings. Plus, one should also remember that this is the youngest team (notwithstanding the 15-year old claim) and is very much in 'under construction' mode.

[jaydeep]

Agree with akmohanty, I m also not overly disappointed with our performance watching few matches ... Definitely lot of scope of improvement but considering poor state of our hockey governing body and then sex scandal and removing of main coach, I would say our women performed lot better than our expectations.

Also youngest player of the tournament, Rani Rampal, voted best young player at the Women's Hockey World Cup, who scored 7 goals in the tournament ... She finished second-highest goal scorer behind Dutch penalty corner specialist Maartje Paumen, who scored 12 goals.