Tour of Argentina and Germany has helped plan on areas we need to improve, says Deep Grace Ekka
Mar 18, 2021
Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], March 18 : The Indian women's hockey team's recent tours to Argentina and Germany respectively have been crucial in their preparations for the Olympic Games, feels experienced defender Deep Grace Ekka.
"Playing against Argentina and Germany, both highly ranked in the world, with very different and unique playing styles has been very helpful in planning the areas we need to improve in the days leading up to the Olympics," said Ekka in an official Hockey India release.
"World No.3 Argentina plays man-to-man, and their style is quite conventional. Personally, for me, playing against Germany was quite intriguing because of their style and attacking game. There was a lot to learn about how the German players communicate on the field and how they create space in pursuit of circle entries. Their attack is aggressive, they are quick and think on their feet," she added.
Grace feels this experience against Germany will help them take on World No.1 Netherlands in their opening match at the Olympic Games.
"I felt that Germany and Netherlands have a very similar style. They tackle two-on-one and the way they attack is very similar. I feel we have gained a lot of confidence playing against Argentina and Germany. We have no inhibitions or fear in our mind when we play these top teams now and another key element has been our fitness. We don't tire easily anymore and that will help us bounce back in the game and finish well even if there are early setbacks," she said.
Another takeaway from the recent tours is the team's improved show in penalty corner defending. "I feel we have improved a lot in our PC defending. Though we need to avoid giving away penalty corners, we have improved in defending PCs. If we have given away 5-6 penalty corners in a match, we restrict conversion to 1 or at the most 2 which was not the case earlier," she said.
Grace credits this positive improvement to the team's analytical coach Jenneke Schopman. "Since Jenneke has joined the team, we have paid a lot of attention to PC defending and earlier, we would just take positions but now she's helped us work on our movements while defending a PC and that has made a lot of difference," she said.
