Scoring the first goal will be our priority: Ritu Rani

WITH EYES SET ON RIO OLYMPICS, the Hockey India women's team will leave for London next week, on April 30, to play a four-test series against Great Britain as part of their preparations for the big games.  

Though the team's recent show at Hawke's Bay Cup in New Zealand could have been better, national coach for women, Neil Hawgood, admits the team has learnt from its mistakes.

"We have come back from there and in the last two games that we've played against the boys' teams here (at the SAI centre) we've played better here now than we did in any game in New Zealand. We're playing a lot faster and people have just realized that we're coming to a point where you've just got to put in the effort that's actually required," Hawgood says. 

Playing England, who figure in the same pool as. India for the Olympics, will be a tough challenge for the team.

"England's a bit difficult, because all the teams that we play now (till the Olympics) are in our pool (at the Olympics). We've got GB in four Test matches. We've got GB in four Test matches. Then we are planning Australia and Japan in Australia. They're all in our pool as well. Then prior to the Olympics we are planning  three Tests against the USA who're in our pool as well," says Hawgood. " says Hawgood.  

One of the biggest concerns for the team is their start, feels Ritu Rani, captain of the squad.

"We got a quarterfinal against Japan and in a two-and-a-half-minute period, we let in three goals. Then the rest of the game was 1-0 to us. So we just don't start well and historically we've always put ourselves behind and that kind of puts the pressure on us. It's one of the things we've focused on in the boys' games. In the first boys' game, we were terrible in the first quarter and we were better in the next three and we're really focusing on our starts. It's about being right for the start of anything: whether it's training, running, or going to the gym. The focus in England will be to score first before the opponent team," she says further adding, "We want to focus on field goals and improvise on penalty corners too and perfect them by August." 

With Rio being the first time ever that a women's team has qualified for the Olympics is a big confidence booster for the girls and according to Rani, the team is high on motivation.

"Each of us are working individually on improving our own game and getting better. We know we are left with just three months and we want to make most of it. Though there have been a few injuries to some of the girls, and Jasprit is missed for the past three months (because of a back injury) and not having a drag flicker makes a lot of difference. However, we have other players in the team who have gotten that much better in the past four months that we have been training here at SAI," she says.  

Hawgood further adds,

"We've got to work harder on what we can do without her (Jasprit). We created enough corners but you've got to get things right in August. We know what we want to do and we've still got three months to sit down and get things right. I'm not worried about that. I'd be worried if we weren't winning corners. That would be even more scary. But the fact that we were winning corners and creating the chances as long as we're doing that we're still on the right path."  

Speaking of the other injured players, Hawgood said,

"The injured players are coming along quite well. Sushila's was a pretty big knee injury. It could've led to a knee reconstruction but we think we can get by with a brace. We're treating her cautiously and hopefully in the next three weeks she'll be back in training with the brace. We're actually quite lucky with that one. That puts a lot of experience back into our defence. Anuradha's was a hamstring. We could've taken her to New Zealand but the risk of her hurting again would've put four weeks on her recovery. That's not a big injury. Ritu's is more about recovery. When we sat down and looked at her history, from when she first started playing in 2006, I remember, at the World Cup in Madrid. She hasn't had a break since then. She's just been playing and playing. We had this opportunity for her to sit down (for New Zealand) and refresh and get ready to start enjoying hockey a little bit more.