Asian Champions Trophy | Coach Craig Fulton not very concerned with penalty corner woes
India's continued performance in the Asian Champions Trophy has been hampered by the persistent issue of poor penalty corner conversion, but head coach Craig Fulton is not overly concerned, stating that such dismal days from set pieces won't "stay forever."
The South African is pleased that his team is scoring goals as a result of pitch play. "I think we defended well and that helped us put an attack in place. So, we were able to defend from a lot of areas in the field that helped us counter, which is good. We scored some field goals, which got the boys some confidence," he told PTI.
"As far as penalty corner conversion rate (in this match) is concerned, you will have a bad day, but it won't stay bad forever. And we had a good balance today (Sunday)." India won 15 penalty corners against Japan, but just one was successful, resulting in a 1-1 tie. The depressing fact versus Malaysia on Sunday was that they only successfully converted two of ten set pieces.
When asked about the areas that needed development, Fulton pointed out that his team might have been more strategically aware of the opponent but should have gotten lesser cards.
"We got two yellow cards that I need to look into again. But the improvement areas are just general. It's being tactically aware of what the opposition is doing and how we play in that phase. We are not yet where we need to be upfront as a team, but that's ok," he said. On Monday, India will play host to the reigning champions, South Korea.
"You gotta do it all over again and take nothing for granted. And, it's a back-to-back game, so it will be tough. We will look at what happened tonight (Sunday), take the positives and go again," he said.
In addition to pointing out that managing the tempo aids in the creation of goal-scoring opportunities, India vice-captain and midfielder Hardik Singh claimed that the team's patience paid off against Malaysia.
"I think it was all about patience today (Sunday). We realised that we cannot win any game in the first half, so patience was a vital show from the team," he said.
"If we are unable to score, we still have the ball, and we are setting the tempo, so the goal has to come some time or the other. Also, the decent number of field goals today makes this triumph even sweeter.
"Besides having patience and maintaining the tempo, what was positive was that even after earning the cards, we didn't concede any goals," he signed off.