CHENNAI: Every Monday, Graham Reid, chief coach of the men's hockey team, and support staff gather for a quiet meeting inside the National Centre of Excellence (NCOE) in Bengaluru. The objective of the meeting? "To pick the Olympic 16," Reid says, "and have a look at how the identity of the personnel changes every week."
The Australian, who was in chatty form, also spoke about the disappointment of not playing any more games before the Olympics, the kind of metrics they will now use to pick the final 18 (including two reserves) and how he has been keeping the players focused on hockey in these bleak times. Excerpts:
Is it disappointing that the six Pro League games (two each against Britain, Spain and Germany) have now been lost? Or do you see that as a positive because now there is complete certainty between now and the Olympics?
I won’t lie, it’s disappointing. We had a bit of momentum coming out of the games with Argentina. If we had been able to play those six games, it would have been fantastic. It would have also given us an opportunity to really nail down the selection for the Games. That's the part I’m most disappointed with. We had a 22 that went to Germany and a 22 that went to Argentina. What I was hoping for is an opportunity to have 22 for this trip too to finish that selection conundrum. They say 'you can't change what happens to you but you can change how you react'. But I have been preparing these guys, been telling them 'we may not be getting another opportunity to play in an international competition before the Games'. I have been saying that to the boys for months now. So those two tours we got were a bonus. But those two tours did show that what we are doing here (Bengaluru) is working. Our training environment is world-class, we are close to where we need to be.
Without those games, how will you go about finding the final 18 (including reserves) for Tokyo? Can you name the 16 if you were to name the team, say, today?
I won't go into details but one thing I will say is this. Since Argentina, we (including support staff) are picking our Olympic 16 every Monday and having a look at how that changes (on a week by week basis). It’s always a good exercise to go through... it pretty much answers your question I think. The problem that you always have with selection... if you actually have to pick 16, it’s a very difficult thing to do. One of the objectives that I had when we first started here was to be able to pick around 30 players with the quality staying the same. I think it’s pretty close to that, and that’s a great thing. It shows you where this squad is at.
Elaborating on it, what are the kind of metrics you will use to pick your squad?
Plan B, if you will, from a long time ago... I had already prepared that we weren't going to get any more games. We always play internal matches, normally on a Saturday morning. Over the last two years, we have improved the tempo and increased the importance of these games to get a bit more out of them. We are constantly monitoring the output and then feeding it back to the players. We try and see how their numbers from these games stack up in comparison to the average Pro League game that we play. For example, "the intensity was 7% down on the Pro League game." Whatever those numbers are, we are certainly a lot further down the track in the difference between our practice games and international competitions from say two years ago and now. So that's a positive thing. It allows us to make that step between internal games and external competition. The other vehicle we use is our everyday training environment where someone has an opportunity to make an impression.
The last few months have been bleak with tragic stories every day. That being the case, how do you keep your players focused on hockey?
It's very hard. The most important aspect is to make sure the players themselves are in constant communication with their families. We always try and make sure that happens. We also check in to make sure their families are safe and if there are any issues, we try and address them or help them address them. In the last 16 months or so, we have had a number of issues that we had to deal with and players had to return home to support their families. The best thing you can do is be supportive as much as possible so that they can find it easier to focus on the here and now.
What about yourself, have you had friends and family checking in from Australia? Especially when it looked like going back could result in you being jailed.
(Laughs). I made a couple of comments to my friends. I told them, 'I'm happy to come back for a coffee but you will have to pay the fine money and I will be okay to do the jail time'. It does eat away at you. But I got lucky because my wife was with me here till we left for Germany. She had a flight booked to come back (from Australia) on May 31 but that’s pretty much impossible because the thing is it's not about coming to India but going back to Australia. But yeah, that’s always in the back of your mind.