Our job is not finished yet, says Oltmans

Three wins, all of them very comprehensive and the last one over Pakistan being total domination at the Hero Hockey World League, would entitle the Indians to some kind of confidence, but the Indian coach Roelant Oltmans is making sure that this 'confidence' is not complacency.

Admitting he was very pleased with the Indian performance, Oltmans after the 7-1 win over Pakistan, said, "This kind of a performance would please any coach." But he quickly added, "But our job is not finished yet. We have to stay upbeat, continue to be aggressive and execute our plans to 100 per cent in all the areas to excel against The Netherlands who also have had a good start to the tournament. They are the highest ranked team in the tournament and is European powerhouse."

Similarly, India's young and new skipper Manpreet Singh does not want to get carried away by the three wins. "It was a very good win for us not because it was against Pakistan but because we did well in the areas that had concerned us when we played the 3-Nations Invitational Tournament in Germany before coming to London," said Manpreet. An area of satisfaction, but something that could still be improved upon, is the area of field goals and penalty corners. "Players like Ramandeep, Akashdeep, Sunil, Manpreet, Talwinder and others have all played well and the youngsters are loving the experience," said Oltmans. "But I am happy with the way we have got field goals and executed the plans and Harmanpreet scoring penalty corners goals is a very good for us."

Manpreet concluded, saying, "In our previous tournaments though our statistics in terms of ball possession was very good, and even the number of circle penetrations was encouraging, we were missing goal scoring chances. But now we have overcome that setback with high scoring match against Pakistan."