‘Good thing about a bubble is that it builds resilience’: Graham Reid

Graham Reid is enjoying a rare moment of feeling content. Not only did the Indian men's hockey team finally get to play some matches after a whole year without games, they managed to beat the reigning Olympic champions Argentina in their own backyard in successive Pro League games over the weekend.

The next step for the chief coach is to begin work on areas that he thinks need improvement in light of the team's performances in Buenos Aires.

In an interview, the Australian discusses how his team beat "Los Leones" (the lions), and the challenges ahead with three months to go for the Olympics.

Excerpts:

You must be pleased with the wins against the Olympic champions?

We were pretty lucky on Saturday, but you make your own luck in sport. If you’d asked me beforehand if we’d be happy with five points coming away from playing such a good team I’d have to say yeah. I’d be very pleased.

India re-joined Pro League with last year’s momentum as if there was no Covid-19 break in the middle.

People don’t see all the hard work that goes in behind it all. It’s nice to know you can do something you spent a lot of time practicing, playing within yourselves. To come out and play a different opposition is refreshing and pleasing at the same time. I said to the team afterwards let’s not get carried away. It’s business as usual. We have lots of things to improve on. On Sunday in the first quarter we were a bit asleep. Apart from good goalkeeping we allowed us to stay down early on but I was very happy with the last three quarters. In the first match I was happy that we were able to comeback with patience, belief and skills—a really nice thing to have in your armoury.

What were your expectations and what factors helped India beat Argentina?

We were probably lucky that we had a couple of practice games (vs Argentina) to get a bit of an idea of what to expect and where we needed to focus. We were lucky when we got here that they had played Germany (Argentina losing both games), so we were able to see a bit of that. Before we got here we saw tapes and videos but there were a fair few things we were unsure of. What we were sure of was that they are a very good team who can hurt you if you let them. Their skills are fantastic and to be exposed to those skills is very good. We can take from their game. That’s the great thing about playing different teams, you can pick out things that you need to be doing more.

Of late, the team has shown the ability of fighting back from any situation.

It’s because the game keeps evolving (during a contest). On Saturday we were able to score (six seconds from the hooter) because we were down and had nothing to lose. You try different things with more risks. Tactics come into play; some people take a keeper off in the last minutes etc. The belief you get is from the hard you work you put in beforehand. You need to work hard enough so that your skills can be repeatable under pressure. We work a lot on trying to make sure that under pressure, your best skills are reproducible.

Three months from the Olympics, where are we placed?

There are lots of things that we need to get better at. The focus is still on our clinical finishing in the circle, making more of our opportunities. We count the quality and number of opportunities that we and the other team gets and then we come up with a (comparative) score. What I’d like to see is more quality opportunities that we’re creating and vice-versa in defence. You want to try and reduce the amount of quality opportunities that they get. That’s what we’ll be spending time on. The thing we always do is press which I call “a living and breathing animal”. It changes and morphs as you come across different defences.

What were the main challenges the team faced last year?

The last 12 months have been very demanding, stressful, the emotions we have been through. We end up being tested a lot more than the average person. The amount of times that thing has been put under our nose, down our throats, it’s an uncomfortable time. The emotions you’d have gone through: was I talking to him? How much interaction did I have with them? You think everything is okay, I’ve done everything right but there's still that stress—natural human emotions. Then there are things we can do or not when we are locked down. On top of all that you still got to be super fit and working to get better.

How is it to finally play competitions after more than a year?

The feeling is invaluable and refreshing, just to get out, step into the real world. To be able to play such good teams as Great Britain and Germany was a good warm-up. The fact that they weren’t Pro League games gave us the license to try things. We saw what mistakes (we made and decided) to build on them. They throw something at you, you’ve to counter that and come up with a different solution. All those things help you get better under different situations so that when they happen again you’re more prepared for the answer; that’s what you miss when you don’t have competition. But it also gives you the confidence and security that what we’ve been doing in our training environment in Bengaluru, we’re doing it right and gives us believe we can be competing at this level.

What’s it like being in a bubble right now?

We’re social animals so it is hard even wearing a mask all the time. It’s tough for young people to be kept inside. Here we’ve not been able to leave the hotel apart from when heading to the ground to train or play. It’s tough as a coach to impose restrictions in a beautiful city like Buenos Aires. We can only look at it from our windows. But it’s how you react. The good thing is it helps build resilience. The more you have to go through as a group helps people bond together. When you experience something unusual or difficult together that can be a good bonding experience.

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