Rajgir (Bihar): Chief coach Craig Fulton termed India’s Asia Cup-winning campaign as a “good squad performance” and said the boys had fulfilled his desire by becoming the champion team in Asia.
Dilpreet Singh scored a brace as India produced a clinical performance to outplay defending champions South Korea 4-1 and lift their fourth Asia Cup title, which came after a gap of eight years.
The title enabled India to directly qualify for next year’s World Cup to be held in Belgium and the Netherlands.
“It was difficult. A lot of things didn’t fall into place for us but at the same time, it’s a good performance, a good result,” Fulton said. “Finals can be sketchy. They could go 2-2 and then you’re looking for a winner but to get 4-0 up and then 4-1, I am happy with the position at the end.”
His track record with this side has been impressive — three gold medals and a bronze in four tournaments — but Fulton’s vision goes beyond just dominating in Asia.
“Yeah, I would (call this a really good tournament team). That’s a pretty good record but the main thing is we want to be number one in Asia but we also want to build depth in Asia so that we can also have more depth in our squad.
“We’re just getting there. There’s two different types of hockey — Asian hockey and European hockey. So all the power sits in Europe, in a way, and obviously Australia. We’re trying to build something here that we can have depth in what we do and then go and challenge the teams in Europe,” he explained.
Asked about the most impressive aspect of the team here, Fulton singled out its commitment and intelligence. “The team’s super intelligent. Whatever we throw at it, it tries and does it. We do a lot of homework on opposition and ourselves, more on ourselves, but when they commit to doing something, they do it well.”
The team’s fitness was also praised. “If you take seven games in 10 days, that’s really difficult and we were physically stronger than all the teams here. That was the number one thing to do. We prepared well, we executed, didn’t start so well but finished really strong.”
Fulton, however, conceded that handling the overall tournament situation was something which needed to be better. “The pressure needs to be on in the beginning and then less and less, instead of starting slow and putting yourself under pressure. We did it a little bit the other way.”
