"Failure to qualify for the Olympics is the catalyst for the change that needs to occur"

•So what are some of the chronic problems that still exist in Indian hockey? Their strengths…Ok let's talk about the strengths of Indian hockey, the Indian style of hockey..What we call the sub continental style of hockey

Well we are very attached to it. But I'm not sure it covers all the basics. I think that's one of the problems. It's strong in some areas but it has soft spots. India doesn't have a defensive mentality in some ways about how you are going to stop the other team scoring. You need that in terms attacking, perhaps the attacking approach is too one-dimensional. There's not enough depth in which they go about it. And certainly tactically, the approach that's taken is an approach that's been around for a long time.

•Too set piece?

Well..Yes. I think there's only one way of scoring. The actual fact is there are a lots of ways of scoring. You have to cover all of them. And we don't have at the moment, very good field goal scorers. We have some good penalty corner takers. But you have to win lots of corners for that to be useful and also have to take the field chances when they come.

•There was a time, say in the past five years when we scored more field goals than before?

Well, I don't know. I mean, if you look at the statistics they don't lie. And sometimes we don't face upto the statistics. For instance, in the Olympic games in Athens, Egypt had more shots at goal and they finished bottom than India. That's a very scary statistic.

•Ric it's scary when you say Egypt had more shots at goal than India and Egypt finished at the bottom. B ut when you played against India did you find India predictable because one belief we have in India is sub-continental Hockey has become very predictable and since you guys in the western world think more tactics you've been able to figure things out. You know if one forward escapes what will he do next. So what to block next.

Well I think you have to have a conceptual understanding of how you play. Sometimes because it's this is what you do in this situation. That's learnt by rote then that doesn't give you the capacity to make a decision when things change or they don't happen as you want to. I don't think the individual players from India are predictable at all. I think some of them have very special skills.

... contd.