Walsh, Hawgood aim decent outings

‘The first objective is to accumulate sufficient points to go into the semi-final crossovers. Where our rhythm and skill execution has been of very good quality, our penalty corner conversion will be a key component in the whole process. Rupinder Pal Singh is overcoming a minimal adductor tweak and V R Raghunath has been executing very efficiently. Of course the key is match situation conversions.’ Walsh said.

Walsh further said, ‘The team has now familiarised with the Games village and playing venue. The training level in the past one week has been encouraging and the group is focussed at building towards the performance stage. We have a reshape strike group and that continues to grow in understanding and quality.’

Meanwhile, having settled down at the Games village, Hawgood said the spirit among the girls is high. ‘The team is feeling quite confident and is in good spirits at the moment, with training and village life going along quite smoothly. We are now narrowing our focus to the finer points that will prove to be crucial in our matches and making sure that we are all working together towards our goal. Our penalty corner work is progressing. With some good results in Malaysia we are confident that we have enough ideas about the style and execution of our penalty corners and if executed well, then we should see positive results,’ Hawgood said.

The women’s team will take on Canada on Thursday while their male counterparts will play Wales the following day.