Hockey Junior World Cup Men: Boys are upbeat and focused, says Oltmans

Lucknow : With just nine days to go before India take on Canada in their Pool D match at the Uttar Pradesh Hockey Junior World Cup Men, Lucknow 2016 slated to begin at the Major Dhyan Chand Hockey Stadium, Roelant Oltmans put the players through a rigorous session where the focus was on scoring goals.

The training in the morning began with warm-up followed by strong passes, penalty corner conversion for dragflickers while goalkeepers worked with South African Dave Staniforth, the session was also focused on goal scoring. "We tried different tactics to do with player positioning within the circle for goal scoring. The boys are upbeat and focused. We will be playing a practice match with Argentina on December 2 and further fine tune our game," stated Oltmans.

He also added that the players are getting used to the new turf here at the Major Dhyan Chand Hockey Stadium which serves as the main venue for the mega event with all 44 matches being played here.

"We have trained on this pitch for the past five days and the boys are getting used to the new turf. It is similar to the turf back in Bengaluru SAI where the boys have been based for almost 10 months."

The squad will play their second practice match on December 5 against Netherlands. "We will meet these two teams with which we play practice match only in the Semi Finals or the Final. So this won't be just another practice game," he asserted.

The evening session saw the squad train at the newly built Padma Shri Mohammed Shahid Synthetic Hockey Stadium which will serve as the practice venue for the tournament. The training was carried out for two hours under flood lights.